erever the language is spoken, made the journey through this canon and
came out alive. That journey once started, there could be no turning
back. Down and down they were buffeted by the rushing waters, over the
falls and through the tunnels, with time to think only of that which
would save them from immediate death, until they emerged into the
sunlight of the plain below.

All of which by way of parallel. For our own chronicle, hitherto
leisurely enough, is coming to its canon--perhaps even now begins to feel
the pressure of the shelving sides. And if our heroine be somewhat rudely
tossed from one boulder to another, if we fail wholly to understand her
emotions and her acts, we must blame the canon. She had, indeed, little
time to think.

One evening, three weeks or so after the conversation with Ethel Wing
just related, Honora's husband entered her room as her maid was giving
the finishing touches to her toilet.

"You're not going to wear that dress!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?" she asked, without turning from the mirror.

He lighted a cigarette.

"I thought you'd put on something handsome--to go to the Graingers'. And
where are your jewels? You'll find the women there loaded with 'em."

"One string of pearls is all I care to wear," said Honora--a reply with
which he was fain to be content until they were in the carriage, when she
added: "Howard, I must ask you as a favour not to talk that way before
the servants."

"What way?" he demanded.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "if you don't know I suppose it is impossible to
explain. You wouldn't understand."

"I understand one thing, Honora, that you're too confoundedly clever for
me," he declared.

Honora did not reply. For at that moment they drew up at a carpet
stretched across the pavement.

Unlike the mansions of vast and imposing facades that were beginning
everywhere to catch the eye on Fifth Avenue, and that followed mostly the
continental styles of architecture, the house of the Cecil Graingers had
a substantial, "middle of-the-eighties" appearance. It stood on a corner,
with a high iron fence protecting the area around it. Within, it gave one
an idea of space that the exterior strangely belied; and it was
furnished, not in a French, but in what might be called a comfortably
English, manner. It was filled, Honora saw, with handsome and priceless
things which did not immediately and aggressively strike the eye, but
which somehow gave the impression of having alw