ame a long pause.

"Well, I have a story to fell you," said Quarrier, at length.

"So I supposed," murmured the other, without eagerness.

"I don't know that I _should_ have told it but for that chance
encounter at Kew. But I'm not sorry. I think, Glazzard, you are the one
man in the world in whom I have perfect confidence."

The listener just bent his head. His features were impassive.

"It concerns Lilian, of course," Quarrier pursued, when he had taken a
few puffs less composedly than hitherto. "I am telling the story
without her leave, but--well, in a way, as I said, the necessity is
forced upon me. I can't help doing many things just now that I should
avoid if I had my choice. I have undertaken to fight society by
stratagem. For my own part, I would rather deal it a plain blow in the
face, and bid it do its worst; but"----He waved his hand.

Glazzard murmured and nodded comprehension.

"I'll go back to the beginning. That was about three years ago. I was
crossing the North Sea (you remember the time; I said good-bye to you
in the Academy, where your bust was), and on the boat I got into
conversation with a decent kind of man who had his wife and family with
him, going to settle for a time at Stockholm; a merchant of some sort.
There were three children, and they had a governess--Lilian, in fact,
who was then not much more than eighteen. I liked the look of her from
the first. She was very still and grave,--the kind of thing that takes
me in a woman, provided she has good features. I managed to get a word
or two with her, and I liked her way of speaking. Well, I was
sufficiently interested to say to myself that I might as well spend a
week or two at Stockholm and keep up the acquaintance of these people;
Becket, their name was. I'm not exactly the kind of fellow who goes
about falling in love with nursery governesses, and at that time
(perhaps you recollect?) I had somebody else in mind. I dare say it was
partly the contrast between that shark of a woman and this modest girl;
at all events, I wanted to see more of Lilian, and I did I was in
Stockholm, off and on, for a couple of months. I became good friends
with the Beckets, and before coming back to England I made an offer to
Miss Allen--that was the governess's name. She refused me, and I was
conceited enough to wonder what the deuce she meant."

Glazzard laughed. He was listening with more show of interest.

"Well," pursued Quarrier, after puffing vainl