good night to his hostess. His face,
she thought, had not lost that strange look of determination that she
recalled. And yet--how account for his recklessness?

"Rum chap, Chiltern," remarked Carrington. "He might be almost anything,
if he only knew it."

In the morning, when she awoke, her eye fell on the cotillon favours
scattered over the lounge. One amongst them stood out--a silver-mounted
pin-cushion. Honora arose, picked it up contemplatively, stared at it
awhile, and smiled. Then she turned to her window, breathing in the
perfumes, gazing out through the horse-chestnut leaves at the green,
shadow-dappled lawn below.

On her breakfast tray, amidst some invitations, was a letter from her.
uncle. This she opened first.

"Dear Honora," he wrote, "amongst your father's papers, which have
been in my possession since his death, was a certificate for three
hundred shares in a land company. He bought them for very little,
and I had always thought them worthless. It turns out that these
holdings are in a part of the state of Texas that is now being
developed; on the advice of Mr. Isham and others I have accepted an
offer of thirty dollars a share, and I enclose a draft on New York
for nine thousand dollars. I need not dwell upon the pleasure it is
for me to send you this legacy from your father. And I shall only
add the counsel of an old uncle, to invest this money by your
husband's advice in some safe securities." . . .

Honora put down the letter, and sat staring at the cheque in her hand.
Nine thousand dollars--and her own! Her first impulse was to send it back
to her uncle. But that would be, she knew, to hurt his feelings--he had
taken such a pride in handing her this inheritance. She read the letter
again, and resolved that she would not ask Howard to invest the money.
This, at least, should be her very own, and she made up her mind to take
it to a bank in Thames Street that morning.

While she was still under the influence of the excitement aroused by the
unexpected legacy, Mrs. Shorter came in, a lady with whom Honora's
intimacy had been of steady growth. The tie between them might perhaps
have been described as intellectual, for Elsie Shorter professed only to
like people who were "worth while." She lent Honora French plays,
discussed them with her, and likewise a wider range of literature,
including certain brightly bound books on evolution and sociology.

In the eighteent