plans in accordance with his own ideas.

The breakfast bell rang again, and Doctor Dexter went downstairs. The
servant met him in the hall. "Breakfast is waiting, sir," she said.

"All right," returned the Doctor, absently. "I'll be there in a
moment."

He opened the door for a breath of fresh air, and immediately perceived
the small, purple velvet box at his feet. He picked it up,
wonderingly, and opened it.

Inside were the discoloured pearls on their bed of yellowed satin, and
the ivory-tinted slip of paper on which he had written, so long ago, in
his clear, boyish hand: "First, from the depths of the sea, and then
from the depths of my love."

Being unemotional, he experienced nothing at first, save natural
surprise. He stood there, staring into vacancy, idly fingering the
pearls. By some evil magic of the moment, the hour seemed set back a
full quarter of a century. As though it were yesterday, he saw Evelina
before him.

She had been a girl of extraordinary beauty and charm. He had
travelled far and seen many, but there had been none like Evelina. How
he had loved her, in those dead yesterdays, and how she had loved him!
The poignant sweetness of it came back, changed by some fatal alchemy
into bitterness.

Anthony Dexter had seen enough of the world to recognise cowardice when