a handsome English girl of three-and-twenty, who is liked in her set and has the run of a score of big country houses without any chaperonial encumbrance.  For the chaperon is going down to the shadowy kingdom of the extinct, and is already reckoned with dodos, stagecoaches, muzzle loaders, crinolines, Southey’s poems, the Thirty-nine Articles, Benjamin Franklin’s reputation, the British workman, and the late Herbert Spencer’s philosophy.

On the previous evening Lady Maud had not told Margaret that Lord Creedmore lived in Surrey, having let his town house since his youngest daughter had married.  She now explained that it would be absurd to think of driving such a distance when one could go almost all the way by train.  The singer was rather scared at the prospect of possibly missing trains, waiting in draughty stations, and getting wet by a shower; she was accustomed to think nothing of driving twenty miles in a closed carriage to avoid the slightest risk of a wetting.

But Lady Maud piloted her safely, and showed an intimate knowledge of the art of getting about by public conveyances which amazed her companion.  She seemed to know by instinct the difference between one train and another, when all looked just alike, and when she had to ask a question of a guard or a porter her inquiry was met with business-like directness and brevity, and commanded the respect which all officials feel for people who do not speak to them without a really good reason—­so different from their indulgent superiority when we enter into friendly conversation with them.

The journey ended in a walk of a quarter of a mile from the station to the gate of the small park in which the house stood.  Lady Maud said she was sorry she had forgotten to telephone for a trap to be sent down, but added cheerfully that the walk would do Margaret good.

‘You know your way wonderfully well,’ Margaret said.

‘Yes,’ answered her companion carelessly.  ’I don’t think I could lose myself in London, from Limehouse to Wormwood Scrubs.’

She spoke quite naturally, as if it were not in the least surprising that a smart woman of the world should possess such knowledge.

‘You must have a marvellous memory for places,’ Margaret ventured to say.

‘Why?  Because I know my way about?  I walk a great deal, that’s all.’

Margaret wondered whether the Countess Leven habitually took her walks in the direction of Limehouse in the east or Shepherd’s Bush in the west; and if so, why?  As for the distance, the thoroughbred looked as if she could do twenty miles without turning a hair, and Margaret wished she would not walk quite so fast, for, like all great singers, she herself easily got out of breath if she was hurried; it was not the distance that surprised her, however, but the fact that Lady Maud should ever visit such regions.

They reached the house and found Lord Creedmore in the library, his lame foot on a stool and covered up with a chudder.  His clear brown eyes examined Margaret’s face attentively while he held her hand in his.