down Sixty-ninth Street in the direction of the Park.

In Gerty the chance meeting had awakened a slumbering interest which she
had half forgotten, and as she drove down Fifth Avenue toward Laura's
distant home she found herself wondering idly if he would let many days
go by before he came again. The thought was still in her mind when the
carriage turned into Gramercy Park and stopped before the old brown
house hidden in creepers in which Laura lived. So changed by this time,
however, was Gerty's mood that, after leaving her carriage, she stood
hesitating from indecision upon the sidewalk. The few bared trees in the
snow, the solemn, almost ghostly, quiet of the quaint old houses and the
deserted streets, in which a flock of sparrows quarrelled under the
faint sunshine, produced in her an odd and almost mysterious sense of
unreality--as if the place, herself, the waiting carriage, and Laura
buried away in the dull brown house, were all creations of some gossamer
and dream-like quality of mind. She felt suddenly that the sorrows which
had oppressed her in the morning belonged no more to any existence in
which she herself had a part. Then, looking up, she saw her husband
crossing the street between the two men with whom he had lunched, and
even the impressive solidity of Perry Bridewell appeared to her
strangely altered and out of place.

He came up, a little breathless from his rapid walk, and it was a minute
before he could summon voice to introduce the cheerful, fresh-coloured
youth on his right hand.

"I've already told Mrs. Bridewell about you, Mr. Trent," he said at
last, "but I'm willing to confess that I haven't told her half the
truth."