coming holiday. He had thought of his tennis racquet and fishing rods,
wondered about his golf clubs and his guns. Even the unexpected
encounter with Miller had done little more than leave an unpleasant
taste in his mouth. And then, on his way down from "up over," as the
natives called that little strip of moorland overhead, he had vanished
into the mist and had come out into another world.

"Andrew! So you are out here? Why did you not come to my room? Surely
your train was very punctual?"

Tallente remained for a moment tense and motionless. Then he turned
around. The woman who stood upon the threshold of the house, framed
with a little cascade of drooping roses, sought for his eyes almost
hungrily. He realised how she must be feeling. A dormant vein of
cynicism parted his lips as he held her fingers for a moment. His tone
and his manner were quite natural.

"We were, I believe, unusually punctual," he admitted. "What an
extraordinary mist! Up over there was no sign of it at all."

She shivered. Her eyes were still watching his face, seeking for an
answer to her unasked question. Blue eyes they were, which had been
beautiful in their day, a little hard and anxious now. She wore a white
dress, simple with the simplicity of supreme and expensive art. A rope
of pearls was her only ornament. Her hair was somewhat elaborately
coiffured, there was a touch of rouge upon her cheeks, and the
unscreened evening sunlight was scarcely kind to her rather wan features
and carefully arranged complexion. She still had her claims to beauty,
however. Tallente admitted that to himself as he stood there appraising
her, with a strange and almost impersonal regard,--his wife of thirteen