meant."

And, as the one was thinking exclusively of Agatha Glyn, and the other
spared a thought for no one but Agatha Brown, they did not arrive at an
explanation.

One result, however, that chance encounter had. The next morning Miss
Agatha Glyn received a letter in the following terms:

"Madam:--I hope you will excuse me intruding, but I think you would
wish to know that Mr. Charles Merceron is in London, and that I met him
this evening with Mr. Wentworth. As you informed me that you had passed
Mr. Merceron on the road two or three times during your visit to Lang
Marsh, I think you may wish to be informed of the above. I may add that
Mr. Merceron is aware that you are engaged to Mr. Wentworth, but I
could not make out how far he was aware of what happened at Lang Marsh.
I think he does not know it. Of course you will know whether Mr.
Wentworth is aware of your visit there. I should be much obliged if you
would be so kind as to tell me what to say if I meet the gentlemen
again. Mr. Merceron is very pressing in asking me for news of you. I am
to be married in a fortnight from the present date, and I am, Madam,
yours respectfully, Nettie Wallace."

"In London, and with Calder!" exclaimed Agatha Glyn. "Oh dear! oh dear!
oh dear! What is to be done? I wish I'd never gone near the wretched
place!"

Then she took up the letter and reread it.

"He and I mustn't meet, that's all," she said.

Then she slowly tore the letter into very small pieces and put them in
the waste-paper basket.

"Calder has no idea where I was," she said, and she sat down by the
window and looked out over the Park for nearly ten minutes.

"Ah, well! I should like to see him just once again. Dear old Pool."
said she.

Then she suddenly began to laugh--an action only to be excused in one
in her position, and burdened with her sins, by the fact of her having
at the moment a peculiarly vivid vision of Millie Bushell going head
first out of a canoe.

CHAPTER VII

THE INEVITABLE MEETING

The first Viscount Thrapston had been an eminent public character, and
the second a respectable private person; the third had been neither.
And yet there was some good in the third. He had loved his only son
with a fondness rare to find; and for ten whole years, while the young
man was between seventeen and twenty-seven, the old lord lived, for his
sake, a life open to no reproach. Then the son died, leaving a lately
married wife and a baby-girl,