of those tiresome, inconsistent young women who remain blind to the
teachings of reason and experience, and ever find some remnants of good
in the rag-bags of humanity.

Bridget had lost her mother when she was eighteen! She had knocked
about with her father for several years since. Of course she ought not
to have encouraged Mark's visits night after night, as doubtless she
had done; but, then, she may have had the intelligence to see that Mark
was a man in a thousand--in a thousand! Mark was a man in a million!

In the end Carrissima left Grandison Square at a few minutes before
four o'clock that afternoon, and having rung the bell at Number 5,
Golfney Place, she was crushed to hear from Miller that Bridget had
been out since a quarter to twelve.

"Oh!" said Carrissima, ashamed of her own artfulness, "I suppose she
went with Colonel Faversham?"

"Yes," returned Miller.

"Do you know where they have gone?" asked Carrissima.

"Colonel Faversham told the chauffeur to drive to Richmond."

"To Richmond--thank you," said Carrissima. "I will come another day."
Then she turned away with the card-case still in her hand and a heavier
weight at her heart. She wished she had never gone to Crowborough that
summer five years ago! Very devoutly she wished that Mark Driver had
not visited the Old Masters' Exhibition. She had not walked far on her
way home when she saw Jimmy Clynesworth coming towards her, and thought