eral topics. Mrs. Peniston went to bed early, and when she had gone
Lily sat down and wrote a note to Selden. She was about to ring for a
messenger to despatch it when her eye fell on a paragraph in the evening
paper which lay at her elbow: "Mr. Lawrence Selden was among the
passengers sailing this afternoon for Havana and the West Indies on the
Windward Liner Antilles."

She laid down the paper and sat motionless, staring at her note. She
understood now that he was never coming--that he had gone away because he
was afraid that he might come. She rose, and walking across the floor
stood gazing at herself for a long time in the brightly-lit mirror above
the mantel-piece. The lines in her face came out terribly--she looked
old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look to other
people? She moved away, and began to wander aimlessly about the room,
fitting her steps with mechanical precision between the monstrous roses
of Mrs. Peniston's Axminster. Suddenly she noticed that the pen with
which she had written to Selden still rested against the uncovered
inkstand. She seated herself again, and taking out an envelope, addressed
it rapidly to Rosedale. Then she laid out a sheet of paper, and sat over
it with suspended pen. It had been easy enough to write the date, and
"Dear Mr. Rosedale"--but after that her inspiration flagged. She meant to
tell him to come to her, but the words refused to shape themselves. At
length she began: "I have been thinking----" then she laid the pen down,
and sat with her elbows on the table and her face hidden in her hands.

Suddenly she started up at the sound of the door-bell. It was not
late--barely ten o'clock--and there might still be a note from Selden, or
a message--or he might be there himself, on the other side of the door!
The announcement of his sailing might have been a mistake--it might be
another Lawrence Selden who had gone to Havana--all these possibilities
had time to flash through her mind, and build up the conviction that she
was after all to see or hear from him, before the drawing-room door
opened to admit a servant carrying a telegram.

Lily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset's name below
the message: "Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you join us on a cruise
in Mediterranean?"

BOOK TWO

Chapter 1

It came vividly to Selden on the Casino steps that Monte Carlo had, more
than any other place he knew, t