things, admitted, but not accounted for, fails to warn the victims of
approaching fate. Serenely, blissfully, did Mr. Symington wend his way
to the bank on that golden afternoon. It had occurred to him to exchange
his faultless and too expensive boating-costume for a cheap jersey and
trousers; but he feared that this might excite suspicion: he had still
sense enough left to be aware that there had been no shadow of this in
the sweet blue eyes yesterday.

He had not sung

She'd a rose in her bonnet, and, oh, she looked sweet!

more than five hundred times since the previous evening: so, by way of
variety, he was humming it softly to himself as he approached the bank.
He was a little early, of course. She had not come yet. So he dusted the
cushions, and sponged up a few drops of water from the bottom of the
boat, and then sat down to wait. He was not kept waiting long. He heard
voices approaching, then a clear, soft laugh, and she was there;
but--oh, retribution!--with her, supporting her on his arm, was
Professor Silex! Wild thoughts of leaping into the river and
swimming--under water--to the opposite bank passed through the brain of
this victim of his own duplicity; but he checked himself sternly,--he
was proposing to himself to act the part of a coward, and before her, of
all the world. No, he would face the music, were it the "Rogue's March"
itself. And then a faint, a very faint hope sprang up in his heart: the
professor was noted for his absent-mindedness: perhaps there would be no
recognition. Vain delusion.

"Your boatman has not kept his appointment," said the professor,
advancing inexorably down the bank; "but I see a member of my class--an