landing again, sank down there, ignominiously,
sitting on the carpet, his back to the wall, a wreck of his spruce,
dapper self, having bodily and spiritually reached the bounds of
endurance.

They telegraphed for her husband. "Let him come and take her home, and
carry her himself!" Everard said, savagely. "It's his place to carry
her, not mine. We've done our part--let her go."

He came as soon as the train could bring him. Lucilla was able to tell
him truthfully that his wife had lain and called upon his name all
night.

"He is kneeling by her bedside and kissing her, and crying over her,"
Lucilla told her husband, running down to him, her own eyes wet with
tears. "Isn't it a mercy he loves her so?"

"There's nothing whatever the matter with her, you know," Everard said.
"The doctor's just been telling me. Nothing whatever."

"I knew that all along," Lucilla told him.

He took her hand and looked in her face, and his own grew red.
"Confession is good for the soul, and you and I should have no secrets,
Luce," he said. "That little woman upstairs--you'll think me an awful
ass. She and I--she----"

Lucilla nodded, without looking at him. "I knew that all along, too,"
she said.

"You knew? Yet you asked her here?"

He held her before him, and looked in her face, and kissed her.

"I don't believe any other woman would have done that. That was a risky
thing to do, Luce," he said.

"But it answered," Lucilla said to herself as she turned away.

TO BERTHA IN BOMBAY

He is a big, heavily-made, healthy-looking man of young middle-age. He
came into the coffee-room as I was sitting at breakfast, and having
looked slowly round the room, he placed himself with much deliberation
opposite me, at the little table which I had secured to myself. The act
did not prejudice me in his favour. There was room and to spare at a
large centre table where a dozen men were sitting; two of the smaller
tables were empty. There was something about him I need not bore you by
describing which stamps the colonial man. From such, one knows what to
expect. He called for a carte and ordered porridge and a sole, and they
were some time in bringing his breakfast.

However, as you know, I have not arrived at thirty years without having
learnt to endure a prolonged gaze with perfect appearance of
indifference.

"I hope you have no objection to my sharing your table?" he said; and I
replied, as I went on with my meal, that I had none.