he fell in with the Denhams in the manner he described to Flemming. An
habitual shyness, and perhaps a doubt of Flemming's sympathetic
capacity, had prevented Lynde from giving his friend more than an
outline of the situation. In his statement Lynde had omitted several
matters which may properly be set down here.

That first day at the table d'hote and the next day, when he was able
more deliberately to study the young woman, Edward Lynde had made no
question to himself as to her being the same person he had seen in so
different and so pathetic surroundings. It was unmistakably the same. He
had even had a vague apprehension she might recognize him, and had been
greatly relieved to observe that there was no glimmer of recognition in
the well-bred, careless glance which swept him once or twice. No, he had
passed out of her memory--with the other shapes and shadows! How strange
they should meet again, thousands of miles from New England; how strange
that he alone, of all the crowded city, should know there had been a
dark episode in this girl's history! What words she had spoken to him
and forgotten, she who now sat there robed in the beauty of her reason!

It was a natural interest, and a deep interest, certainly, that impelled
Lynde to seek the acquaintance of the two ladies. On the third day a
chance service rendered the elder--she had left a glove or a
handkerchief beside her plate at table, and Lynde had followed her with
it from the dining-room--placed him upon speaking terms. They were his
country-women, he was a gentleman, and the surface ice was easily
broken. Three days afterwards Lynde found himself oddly doubting his
first conviction. This was not that girl! The likeness was undeniable:
the same purple-black hair, the same long eyelashes, a very distinctive
feature. In voice and carriage, too, Miss Denham curiously recalled the
other; and that mark on Miss Denham's cheek--a birth-mark--was singular