afternoon, Hagar? Well, don't you think we might ask the chap we met this
morning--first rate fellow--no pleb--picturesque for the box seat--go down
with the ladies--all like him--eh?"

"I don't see how we can," replied Hagar coolly. Mrs. Detlor turned to the
mantelpiece. "We are full up; every seat is occupied--unless I give up my
seat to him."

Mrs. Detlor half turned toward them again, listening acutely. She caught
Hagar's eyes in the mirror and saw, to her relief, that he had no
intention of giving up his seat to Mark Telford. She knew that she must
meet this man whom she had not seen for twelve years. She felt that he
would seek her, though why she could not tell; but this day she wanted to
forget her past, all things but one, though she might have to put it away
from her ever after. Women have been known to live a lifetime on the joy
of one day. Her eyes fell again on the mantelpiece, on Hagar's unopened
letters. At first her eyes wandered over the writing on the uppermost
envelope mechanically, then a painful recognition came into them. She had
seen that writing before, that slow sliding scrawl unlike any other,
never to be mistaken. It turned her sick. Her fingers ran up to the
envelope, then drew back. She felt for an instant that she must take it
and open it as she stood there. What had the writer of that letter to do
with George Hagar? She glanced at the postmark. It was South Hampstead.
She knew that he lived in South Hampstead. The voices behind her grew
indistinct; she forgot where she was. She did not know how long she stood
there so, nor that Baron, feeling, without reason, the necessity for
making conversation, had suddenly turned the talk upon a collision, just
reported, between two vessels in the Channel. He had forgotten their names
and where they hailed from--he had only heard of it, hadn't read it; but
there was great loss of life. She raised her eyes from the letter to the