hings.

"I must go," she said. "My father is coming home early to-day. Good-by,
Mr. Vernon."

"Not really good-by. I hope?"

An expression of sorrow and pain, almost pitiful, clouded her lovely
face. Jack understood the meaning of it, and hated Stephen Foster in his
heart.

"I shall see you here sometimes?" he added.

"Perhaps."

"Then you do not forbid me to come again?"

"How can I do that? This river walk is quite free, Mr. Vernon. Oh,
please don't think me ungrateful, but--but--"

She turned her head quickly away, and did not finish the sentence. She
called a word of farewell over her shoulder, and Jack moodily watched
her slim and graceful figure vanish between the great elm trees that
guard the lower entrance to Strand-on-the-Green.

"John Vernon, you are a fool," he said to himself. "The best thing for
you is to pack up your traps and be off to-morrow morning for a couple
of months' sketching in Devonshire. You've been bitten once--look out!"

He took a shilling from his pocket, and muttered, as he flipped it in
the air: "Tail, Richmond--head, town."

The coin fell tail upward, and Jack went off to dine at the Roebuck on
the hill, beloved of artists, where he met some boon companions and
argued about Whistler until a late hour.

CHAPTER IV.

NUMBER 320 WARDOUR STREET.

The rear-guard of London's great army of clerks had already vanished in
the city, and the hour was drawing near to eleven, when Victor Nevill
shook off his lassitude sufficiently to get out of bed. A cold tub
freshened him, and as he dressed with scrupulous care, choosing his
clothes from a well-filled wardrobe, he occasionally walked to the
window of his sitting-room and looked down on the narrow but lively
thoroughfare of Jermyn street. It was a fine morning, with the scent of
spring in the air, and the many colors of the rumbling 'busses glistened
like fresh paint in the sunlight.

His toilet completed, Victor Nevill pressed an electric bell, in answer
to which there presently appeared, from some mysterious source
downstairs, a boy in buttons carrying a tray on which reposed a small
pot of coffee, one of cream, a pat of butter, and a couple of crisp
rolls. Nevill ate his breakfast with the mechanical air of one who is
doing a tiresome but necessary thing, meanwhile consulting a tiny
memorandum-book, and counting over a handful of loose gold and silver.
Then he put on his hat and gloves, looked at the fit of his gray