d an indiscretion, nothing
_really_ wrong--she hadn't the nerve. But the nuisance of it was,
that, in addition to the indiscretion, she had broken the eleventh
commandment and had very nearly got hanged for her lamb.

In the second year of her widowhood in the month of November, whilst
her hair was still golden and her colouring unpurchased, she had dined
_a deux_ in one of those delectable, ghost-ridden, low-ceilinged sets
of chambers which are tucked away in a certain Inn within the Fleet
Street boundary.

Which is a silly thing to do if you do not own a car and a
long-suffering discreet chauffeur.

The _diner a deux_ and a bit of a play had been the honest programme;
but the inevitable had happened in an all-enveloping blanket of a fog,
on account of which everything in the shape of a hackney carriage had
gone home, and an excursion on foot to the nearest tube rendered
hopeless by the simple fact that you could not see your hand before
your face.

Which would not have mattered a bit if only, as the fog lifted and the
clock of St Dunstan's chimed the hour of three a.m., she had emerged
from the narrow opening into Fleet Street with the aplomb or
_savoir-faire_, which are almost twins, necessary to the occasion.

She would then have beckoned to and smiled sweetly upon the young
ruffian into whom she bumped as he lounged on his way to Covent Garden
Market, and promised him just enough to bring her a taxi or something
on wheels, into which she would have got if it had materialised, and
been whirled away to safety and bed after adieux to her host uttered
with the nonchalance necessary to allay the young ruffian's suspicions.

Instead of this she had slunk from the opening with her host close
behind, had bumped into the young ruffian and with an exclamation of
dismay had shrunk back into the shadows and her host's arms.

In consequence of which action the bare-footed ruffian had shadowed
them until they had met a four-wheeler, had held the lady's dress from
the wheel and overheard the address given to the driver for which he
had received tuppence, and had disappeared into a doorway where he had
spat on his unearned increment and made his plans.

The upshot of it all being the admittance a fortnight later of young
Wal. Hickle, attired in his best and primed with her family history,
into the presence of the terrified woman.

He had simply asked for twenty pounds on the nail in return for his
silence.

And she,