train left Paddington, she put her feet on the cushions of the
opposite seat, with a fine disregard of railway bye-laws, and lit a
cigarette.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that the girl's thoughts should incline
to the time and the very different circumstances in which she had
last journeyed to Melkbridge. This was nine years ago, when she had
come home for the holidays from Eastbourne, where she had been to
school. Then, she had had but one care in the world, this on account
of a jaundiced pony to which she was immoderately attached. Then she
suffered her mind to dwell on the unrestrained grief with which she
had greeted her favourite's decease; as she did so, half-forgotten
fares, scenes, memories flitted across her mind. Foremost amongst
these was her father's face--dignified, loving, kind. Whenever she
thought of him, as now, she best remembered him as he looked when he
told her how she should try to restrain her grief at the loss of her
pet, as her distress gave him pain. She had then been a person of
consequence in her little world, she being her father's only child;
she had been made much of by friends and acquaintances, amongst
whom, so far as she could recollect, no member of the Devitt family
was numbered. Perhaps, she thought, they have lately come to
Melkbridge. Then aspects of the old home passed through her mind.
The room in which she used to sleep; the oak-panelled dining-room;
the garden, which was all her very own, passed in rapid review;
then, the faces of playmates and sweethearts, for she had had
admirers at that early age. There was Charlie Perigal, the boy with
the steely blue eyes and the pretty curls, with whom she had
quarrelled on the ground that he was in the habit of catching birds
in nasty little brick traps; also, because, when taxed with this
offence, he had defended his conduct and, a few moments later, had