nviction that the other "had not heard."

Luke was convinced that the gruesome and sordid news could not have
penetrated within the gorgeous mansion where Lou in an exquisite gown
had sung modern songs in her pure contralto voice. He felt sure that
neither Lou nor Colonel Harris had heard that Philip de Mountford had
been murdered in a taxicab and that police officers had thought fit
to speak to him--Luke--in tones of contemptuous familiarity. Nay more!
now that he himself sat thus opposite good-natured, prosy, sensible
Colonel Harris, he began to think that he must have been dreaming,
that the whole thing could not have occurred, but that he had imagined
it all whilst leaning against the garden-railings trying to strain his
ears so that they should hear the soft faint echo of that pure
contralto voice.

Perhaps the wish had been father to the thought; whilst gazing up at
those brilliantly illumined windows, he might in his heart of hearts
have wished the non-existence of Philip--not his death, but the
annihilation of the past few months, the non-advent of the intruder:
and, thus wishing, he may have imagined the whole thing--the murder in
the cab, the police officer on the door step of the old home in
Grosvenor Square.

A sense of supreme well-being encompassed him now. Lou sat opposite to
him. He could not distinguish her face in the gloom, only the outline
of her head with the soft brown hair perfectly dressed by the hand of
an accomplished maid: Lou, the personification of modernity, of
ordinary commonplace life, but exquisite--just the woman whom he loved
with every fibre of his heart, every tendril of his being and every
sense within him. A soft perfume of sweet peas clung to her gown and
was wafted to his nostrils. He closed his eyes, and drew in a long
breath of supreme delight. Now and then as the cab gave a jerk his
knee came in contact with hers, and down on the ground quite close to
his own there rested a small neatly shod foot, the sole of which he
would have given his heart's blood to kiss.

Oh, yes; he was quite, quite happy: this was reality: his exquisite
Louisa, the outline of her perfect head, the touch of her knee, the
scent of sweet peas which intoxicated him and whipped his senses to
madness and to dreams. It was reality and the other was only the wild
phantasmagoria of a wild imagination--the insane thought born of
insane desire. In the darkness which enveloped him and Lou, he could,
you see,