closely guessed. He went away, and nobody's laid eyes on him until he
turned up to-night."

Honora's innocence was not too great to enable her to read between the
lines of this biography which Reginald Farwell had related with such
praiseworthy delicacy. It was a biography, she well knew, that, like a
score of others, had been guarded as jealously as possible within the
circle on the borders of which she now found herself. Mrs. Grainger with
her charities, Mrs. Littleton Pryor with her good works, Miss Godfrey
with her virtue--all swallowed it as gracefully as possible. Noblesse
oblige. Honora had read French and English memoirs, and knew that history
repeats itself. And a biography that is printed in black letter and
illuminated in gold is attractive in spite of its contents. The contents,
indeed, our heroine had not found uninteresting, and she turned now to
the subject with a flutter of anticipation.

He looked at her intently, almost boldly, she thought, and before she
dropped her eyes she had made a discovery. The thing stamped upon his
face and burning in his eyes was not world-weariness, disappointment,
despair. She could not tell what it was, yet; that it was none of these,
she knew. It was not unrelated to experience, but transcended it. There
was an element of purpose in it, of determination, almost--she would have
believed--of hope. That Mrs. Maitland nor any other woman was a part of
it she became equally sure. Nothing could have been more commonplace than
the conversation which began, and yet it held for her, between the lines
as in the biography, the thrill of interest. She was a woman, and
embarked on a voyage of discovery.

"Do you live in New York?" he asked.