o the surface. She's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror
of it. Her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. I
was strongly opposed to the marriage, but her mother carried it through.
But--yes--about her--I think she is afraid to marry again. If she does
ever consent, it will be because poverty has broken her nerve. If she is
kept on six hundred a year, she may be starved, so to speak, into taking
a husband. If she had sixteen hundred--either she would never marry at
all, or she would be free to marry some handsome young pauper who caught
her fancy. That would be particularly like her. You would be simply
endowing some needy fellow, beside losing her for yourself. D'ye
follow me? If you'll leave it to me, I can find a much better way than
that--better for all of us."

"Hm!" said Thorpe, and pondered the paternal statement. "I see what you
mean," he remarked at last. "Yes--I see."

The General preserved silence for what seemed a long time, deferring
to the reverie of his host. When finally he offered a diversion, in
the form of a remark about the hour, Thorpe shook himself, and then
ponderously rose to his feet. He took his hat and coat from the waiter,
and made his way out without a word.

At the street door, confronting the waning foliage of the Embankment
garden, Kervick was emboldened to recall to him the fact of his
presence. "Which way are you going?" he asked.

"I don't know," Thorpe answered absently. "I think--I think I'll take a
walk on the Embankment--by myself."

The General could not repress all symptoms of uneasiness. "But when am I
to see you again?" he enquired, with an effect of solicitude that defied
control.

"See me?" Thorpe spoke as if the suggestion took him by surprise.

"There are things to be settled, are there not?" the other faltered, in
distressed doubt as to the judicious tone to take. "You spoke, you know,
of--of some employment that--that would suit me."

Thorpe shook himself again, and seemed by an effort to recall his
wandering attention. "Oh yes," he said, with lethargic vagueness--"I
haven't thought it out yet. I'll let you know--within the week,
probably."

With the briefest of nods, he turned and crossed the road. Walking
heavily, with rounded shoulders and hands plunged deep in his overcoat
pockets, he went through the gateway, and chose a path at random. To the
idlers on the garden benches who took note of him as he passed, he
gave the impressi