yes. The maid brought tea, bread and butter, and trout fried
crisp, for her mistress desired nothing else.

Left alone, she leaned back, sipping her tea, listening to the million
tiny voices of the night. The stillness of the country made her nervous
after the clatter of town. Nervous? Was it the tranquil stillness of the
night outside that stirred that growing apprehension in her breast till,
of a sudden, her heart began a deadened throbbing?

Langham here? What was he doing here? He must have arrived this morning.
So that was where he was going when he said he was going north!

After all, in what did it concern her? She had not run away from town to
avoid him, ... indeed not, ... her pilgrimage was her own affair. And
Langham would very quickly divine her pious impulse in coming here....
And he would doubtless respect her for it.... Perhaps have the subtle
tact to pack up his traps and leave.... But probably not.... She knew a
little about Langham, ... an obstinate and typical man, ... doubtless
selfish to the core, ... cheerfully, naively selfish....

She raised her troubled eyes. Over the door was printed in gilt letters:

THE PRESIDENT'S SUITE.

Tears filled her eyes; truly they were kindly and thoughtful, these old
friends of her husband.

And all night long she slept in the room of her late husband, the
president of the Sagamore Angling Club, and dreamed till daybreak of ...
Langham.

V

Langham, clad in tweeds from head to foot, sat on the edge of his bed.

He had been sitting there since daybreak, and the expression on his
ornamental face had varied between the blank and the idiotic. That the
only woman in the world had miraculously appeared at Sagamore Lodge he
had heard from Colonel Hyssop and Major Brent at dinner the evening
before.

That she already knew of his presence there he could not doubt. That
she did not desire his presence he was fearsomely persuaded.

Clearly he must go--not at once, of course, to leave behind him a
possibility for gossip at his abrupt departure. From the tongues of
infants and well-fed club-men, good Lord deliver us!

He must go. Meanwhile he could easily avoid her.

And as he sat there, savoring all the pent-up bitterness poured out for
him by destiny, there came a patter of padded feet in the hallway, the
scrape of nails, a sniff at the door-sill, a whine, a frantic
scratching. He leaned forward and opened the door. His Highness landed
on the bed with on