middle reflecting a
luminous scarlet from the broad red setting sun, and moving steadily,
incessantly seaward. A swarm of mewing gulls went to and fro, and with
them mingled pigeons and crows. The buildings on the Surrey side were
dim and grey and very mysterious, the moored, ice-blocked barges
silent and deserted, and here and there a lit window shone warm. The
sun sank right out of sight into a bank of blue, and the Surrey side
dissolved in mist save for a few insoluble, spots of yellow light,
that presently became many. And after our lovers had come under
Charing Cross Bridge the Houses of Parliament rose before them at the
end of a great crescent of golden lamps, blue and faint, halfway
between the earth and sky. And the clock on the Tower was like a
November sun.

It was a day without a flaw, or at most but the slightest speck. And
that only came at the very end.

"Good-bye, dear," she said. "I have been very happy to-day."

His face came very close to hers. "Good-bye," he said, pressing her
hand and looking into her eyes.

She glanced round, she drew nearer to him. "_Dearest_ one," she
whispered very softly, and then, "Good-bye."

Suddenly he became unaccountably petulant, he dropped her hand. "It's
always like this. We are happy. _I_ am happy. And then--then you are
taken away...."

There was a silence of mute interrogations.

"Dear," she whispered, "we must wait."

A moment's pause. "_Wait_!" he said, and broke off. He
hesitated. "Good-bye," he said as though he was snapping a thread that
held them together.

CHAPTER XVI.

MISS HEYDINGER'S PRIVATE THOUGHTS.

The way from Chelsea to Clapham and the way from South Kensington to
Battersea, especially if the former is looped about a little to make
it longer, come very near to each other. One night close upon
Christmas two friends of Lewisham's passed him and Ethel. But Lewisham
did not see them, because he was looking at Ethel's face.

"Did you see?" said the other girl, a little maliciously.

"Mr. Lewisham--wasn't it?" said Miss Heydinger in a perfectly
indifferent tone.

* * * * *

Miss Heydinger sat in the room her younger sisters called her
"Sanctum." Her Sanctum was only too evidently an intellectualised
bedroom, and a cheap wallpaper of silvery roses peeped coquettishly
from among her draped furniture. Her particular glories were the
writing-desk in the middle and the microscope on the unsteady
octa