Hugh Alston had raised his hat, and she had given him the coolest of
bows. He was turning away, true to his promise to trouble her no more,
and her heart seemed to cry out against it suddenly.

If she could have believed that he had been here of deliberate intent,
to find her, to see her, she would have felt cold anger against him; but
it was an accident, and Joan knew suddenly that for some reason she was
unwilling to let him go.

What she said she hardly knew, something about the unexpectedness of
meetings that were common enough in London. At any rate she spoke, and
was rewarded by the look that came into his face. A starving dog could
not have looked more gratitude to one who had flung him a bone than Hugh
Alston, starving for her, thanked her with his eyes for the few
conventional words.

Before he could realise what had happened, she had introduced him to her
companion.

"Helen, this is Mr. Alston--whom I--I know," she said.

"Alston." Helen Everard congratulated herself afterwards that she had
given no sign of surprise, no start, nothing to betray the fact that the
name was familiar.

Here was the man then whom Lady Linden believed to be Joan's husband,
the man whom Joan had denied she had married, and who she had stated to
General Bartholomew was scarcely more than a stranger to her.

And, looking at him, Helen knew that if Hugh Alston and she met again,