he highest-bred hero he could imagine,
and said, "I am going to Mrs. Westangle's, and I'm afraid I've got the
only conveyance--such as it is. If you would let me offer you half
of it? Mr. Verrian," he added, at the light of acceptance instantly
kindling in her face, which flushed thinly, as with an afterglow of
invalidism.

"Why, thank you; I'm afraid I must, Mr. Merriam," and Verrian was aware
of being vexed at her failure to catch his name; the name of Verrian
ought to have been unmistakable. "The young lady in the office says
there won't be another, and I'm expected promptly." She added, with a
little tremor of the lip, "I don't understand why Mrs. Westangle--" But
then she stopped.

Verrian interpreted for her: "The sea-horses must have given out at
Seasands. Or probably there's some mistake," and he reflected bitterly
upon the selfishness of Miss Macroyd in grabbing that victoria for
herself and her maid, not considering that she could not know, and has
no business to ask, whether this girl was going to Mrs. Westangle's,
too. "Have you a check?" he asked. "I think our driver could find room
for something besides my valise. Or I could have it come--"

"Not at all," the girl said. "I sent my trunk ahead by express."

A frowsy man, to match the frowsy horse, looked in impatiently. "Any
other baggage?"

"No," Verrian answered, and he led the way out after the vanishing
driver. "Our chariot is back here in hiding, Miss--"

"Shirley," she said, and trailed before him through the door he opened.

He felt that he did not do it as a man of the world would have done it,
and in putting her into the ramshackle carryall he knew that he had not
the grace of the sort of man who does nothing else. But Miss Shirley
seemed to have grace enough, of a feeble and broken sort, for both, and
he resolved to supply his own lack with sincerity. He therefore set
his jaw firmly and made its upper angles jut sharply through his
clean-shaven cheeks. It was well that Miss Shirley had some beauty
to spare, too, for Verrian had scarcely enough for himself. Such
distinction as he had was from a sort of intellectual tenseness which
showed rather in the gaunt forms of his face than in the gray eyes,
heavily lashed above and below, and looking serious but dull with their
rank, black brows. He was chewing a cud of bitterness in the accusal he
made himself of having forced Miss Shirley to give her name; but with
that interesting personality at h