ir Miles found his
favourite room ready for him at Claridge's. Next morning, as his hansom
drew up a few minutes after eleven o'clock by the entrance to Paddington
Station, he observed that the porter who stepped forward from the rank
to attend on him, did so with a preoccupied air. The man was grinning,
and kept glancing along the pavement to his right.

"Luggage on the cab just behind," said Sir Miles, alighting.
"Never mind me; my man will take the tickets and get me a seat.
But what's the excitement here?"

"Lady along there, sir--offering to fight her cabby. Says he can't
drive for nuts--"

"Hullo!"

Sir Miles looked, recognised Miss Sally, and walked briskly towards her.
She caught sight of him and nodded.

"Thought you would come. Excuse me a moment."

She lifted her voice and addressed the cabby again--

"Oh, you can talk. They taught you that at the Board School, no doubt.
But drive you cannot; and talk you would not, if you knew the respect
due to a mouth--your own or your horse's."

With this parting shot she turned to Sir Miles again, and held out her
hand.

"Tell your man he needn't trouble about a seat for you. I've engaged a
compartment where we can talk."

"Well?" he asked, ten minutes later, lowering his newspaper as the train
drew out of the station.

"Well, in the first place, it's very good of you to come."

"Oh, as for that . . . You know that if I can ever do you any service--"

"But you can't. It was for your own sake I telegraphed."

"Mine? Is Meriton really burnt to the ground, then? But even that news
wouldn't gravely afflict me."

"It isn't--and it would. At any rate, it might now, I hope," said Miss
Sally enigmatically.

He waited for her to continue.

"Your wife's dead!" she said.

She heard him draw a quick breath.

"Indeed?" he asked indifferently.

"But your son isn't--at least, I hope not."

He looked up and met her eyes.

"But I had word," he said slowly, "word from her, and in her own
handwriting. A boy was born, and died six or seven weeks later--as I
remember, the letter said within a week after his christening."

Miss Sally nodded.

"That settles it," she said; "being untrue, as I happen to know.
The child was alive and hearty a year after the christening, when they
left Cawsand and moved to the East coast. The fact is, my friend, you
had run up--if not in your wife, then in the coastguardsman Ned
Commins--against a pride as stubborn as y