l this time?"

She broke up the group by drawing Mrs. Shelley to a sofa with her and
again looked cautiously round the room. This was the first time that she
had dined out since her illness, almost the first time since the
beginning of the war; and the light and noise, magnified by fancy and
sensitive nerves, made her dizzy. Her mother and the doctor had tried to
keep her at home; but natural obstinacy and uncontrollable whim had been
too much for them. A few weeks ago she had fainted in the train, as she
returned to London from Crawleigh Abbey; an unknown man had taken care
of her, but, though she remembered his voice, she was too giddy to see
or recall his face. On arriving at her father's house in Berkeley
Square, she found her fingers grasping a silver flask with a monogram
"E. L."; and that morning, when Lady Poynter invited her to dinner, she
had divined that "E. L." must stand for Eric Lane. The coincidence would
not have been worth following by itself, but in the latter days of her
illness she had repeatedly dreamed of a child with the stranger's voice;
and, vaguely and shamefacedly, Barbara believed that dreams had an
influence on life and were glimpses beyond the veil of the unknown. She
was coming to believe, too, in predestination as the one cause able to
explain a long series of isolated acts for which she could not hold
herself responsible; and to-night predestination would be put to the
test, for half-a-dozen people had already invited her to meet Eric Lane
and for one reason or another she had never been able to accept. It was
the thought that she might be meeting him at last which had so taken
away her composure that she had hardly been able to cross the room.

"_I_ don't think it's worth waiting," muttered Lady Poynter, her
indignation returning reinforced by hunger. "You might ring the bell,
Max, and find whether any telephone message _has_ been received----"

"It's Eric Lane," Mrs. Shelley explained. "Captain Gaymer was saying
that he'd left London."

"Oh! I'm sorry. I've never met him," said Barbara.

Evidently she was predestined never to meet him; and the noise and light
made her too giddy to decide whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Predestination was winning another round; and, while she was ill and
unresisting, it was comforting to feel that she was not responsible for
all the follies and the one crime which had ruined her life; but it was
sad to feel that she would never meet the he