, Mr. Dallam," said the nurse, "but--he's been
very lonesome to-day."

Dallam sat down on one side of him, Honora on the other.

"Will you go to sleep right away if I do, Sid?" he asked.

The child shut his eyes very tight.

"Like that," he promised.

It was not the Sidney Dallam of the counting-room who told that story,
and Honora listened with strange sensations which she did not attempt to
define.

"I used to be fond of that one when I was a youngster," he explained
apologetically to her as they went out, and little Sid had settled
himself obediently on the pillow once more. "It was when I dreamed," he
added, "of less prosaic occupations than the stock market."

Sidney Dallam had dreamed!

Although Lily Dallam had declared that to leave her house before midnight
was to insult her, it was half-past eleven when Honora and her husband
reached home. He halted smilingly in her doorway as she took off her wrap
and laid it over a chair.

"Well, Honora," he asked, "how do you like--the whirl of fashion?"

She turned to him with one of those rapid and bewildering movements that
sometimes characterized her, and put her arms on his shoulders.

"What a dear old stay-at-home you were, Howard," she said. "I wonder what
would have happened to you if I hadn't rescued you in the nick of time!
Own up that you like--a little variety in life."

Being a man, he qualified his approval.

"I didn't have a bad time," he admitted. "I had a talk with Brent after
dinner, and I think I've got him interested in a little scheme. It's a
strange thing that Sid Dallam was never able to do any business with him.
If I can put this through, coming to Quicksands will have been worth
while." He paused a moment, and added: "Brent seems to have taken quite a
shine to you, Honora."

She dropped her arms, and going over to her dressing table, unclasped a
pin on the front of her gown.

"I imagine," she answered, in an indifferent tone, "that he acts so with
every new woman he meets."

Howard remained for a while in the doorway, seemingly about to speak.
Then he turned on his heel, and she heard him go into his own room.

Far into the night she lay awake, the various incidents of the evening,
like magic lantern views, thrown with bewildering rapidity on the screen
of her mind. At last she was launched into life, and the days of her
isolation gone by forever. She was in the centre of things. And yet
--well, nothing could be perfect. Perhaps