ventured to continue his inquiries. Mr. Gow had escaped with his life
and had reached Honduras, where he expected to try his fortunes anew.
It might be a year or two longer before there were any results. Did the
consul know anything of Honduras? There was coffee there--so she and her
father understood. All this with little hopefulness, no irritation,
but a divine patience in her eyes. The consul, who found that his watch
required extensive repairing, and had suddenly developed an inordinate
passion for cairngorms, watched her as she opened the show-case with no
affectation of unfamiliarity with her occupation, but with all her old
serious concern. Surely she would have made as thorough a shop-girl as
she would--His half-formulated thought took the shape of a question.

"Have you seen Mr. Gray since his return from the Mediterranean?"

Ah! one of the brooches had slipped from her fingers to the bottom of
the case. There was an interval or two of pathetic murmuring, with her
fair head under the glass, before she could find it; then she lifted
her eyes to the consul. They were still slightly suffused with her
sympathetic concern. The stone, which was set in a thistle--the national
emblem--did he not know it?--had dropped out. But she could put it in.
It was pretty and not expensive. It was marked twelve shillings on the
card, but he could have it for ten shillings. No, she had not seen Mr.
Gray since they had lost their fortune. (It struck the consul as none
the less pathetic that she seemed really to believe in their former
opulence.) They could not be seeing him there in a small shop, and they
could not see him elsewhere. It was far better as it was. Yet she
paused a moment when she had wrapped up the brooch. "You'd be seeing him
yourself some time?" she added gently.

"Perhaps."