rom your promise to me, and will
always remain very affectionately yours, AUDREY CRAVEN."

She had just sent the note to the post, when a servant came in with a
telegram. It was from Hardy, announcing his arrival at Queenstown. And
she had trusted to her engagement to Ted for protection against
Vincent's claim.

If she had only waited!

CHAPTER XV

"Great strength and safety with heaviest charges." "Absolute immunity
from all risk of blowing open." "The combination of a perfect trigger
action with a perfect cocking action." Ted Haviland was standing outside
the window of a gunsmith's shop in the King's Road, Chelsea, reading the
enticing legends in which Mr. Webley sets forth the superiority of his
wares above those of all other makers. It was the second day after he
had got Audrey's letter. In his least hopeful moods he had never
expected that blow; and when it fell, as a bolt from the blue, he was
stunned and could not realise that he was struck. He imagined all kinds
of explanations to account for Audrey's conduct. It was a
misunderstanding, a sudden freak; there was some mystery waiting to be
solved; some one--his cousin Nettie probably--had spread some story
about him which had reached Audrey. The scandal already spread in the
family would have been enough; she could hardly have identified its
loudly dressed heroine as herself. It only remained for him to clear his
character. Anything, anything rather than believe in what all healthy
youth revolts against--the irrevocable, the end.

He had tried three times to see Audrey, and she was "not at home";
though the third time he had seen her go into the house not two minutes
before. That instant he had turned away with a stinging mist in his eyes
and the blood surging in his brain. His thoughts now leaped to the end
as blindly as they had shrunk from it before. He had no definite idea of
shooting himself when he turned into the King's Road--his one object was
to go in any direction rather than home; but the shop window, with its
stacks of rifles and cards displaying "Mark I." revolvers, arranged on
them like the spokes of a wheel, caught his attention. He was possessed
with the desire to have a revolver of his own, no matter for what
purpose.

He had just chosen a "Mark I.," and was going into the shop to buy it,
when he heard his name called in a loud hearty voice, "Ted, you bounder!
stop!" and his arm was pulled with a grip that drew him back