The toothache! And my very life, so it seemed to me, hung in the balance.

I did not hesitate one second.

'Hurrah!' I cried. 'She can go. I am to call for her in the cab.'

And I crushed the note cruelly, and threw it in the fire.

'Tell him to call at Ryleys',' I said to Rebecca as she was putting me
and my dress into the cab.

And she told the cabman with that sharp voice of hers, always arrogant
towards inferiors, to call at Ryleys.'

I put my head out of the cab window as soon as we were in
Oldcastle Street.

'Drive straight to Hanbridge,' I ordered.

The thing was done.




II


He was like his photograph, but the photograph had given me only the most
inadequate idea of him. The photograph could not render his extraordinary
fairness, nor the rich gold of his hair, nor the blue of his dazzling