hour if he were to say the word.  She might be on the deck, she might be in her berth, and it still would not be too late.  He left her at nine, and she was to sail at eleven.  During the two intervening hours he paced the town, a prey to hopes, fears, temptations, distresses.  To do him justice, it was her broken heart he thought of, not his own.  To him she was only one of many possibilities; to her, he was the chance of a lifetime.  She might never, he said to himself, “fall into the clutches of so decent a chap again.”  It was a wild wrestle between common sense and folly—­so wild that he was relieved to hear a clock strike eleven, and to know she must have sailed.

The incident sobered him by showing him how near and how easily he could come to a certain form of madness.  After that he worked harder than ever, and in the course of time got his appointment at Rosario.  It was a great “rise,” not only in position and salary, but also in expectations.  Mr. Martin had been resident manager at Rosario before he was taken into partnership—­so who could tell what might happen next?

The first intimation of the change was conveyed by Mr. Jarrott in a manner characteristically casual.  Strange, being about to leave the private office one day, after a consultation on some matter of secondary import, was already half-way to the door, while Mr. Jarrott himself was stooping to replace a book in the revolving bookcase that stood beside his chair.

“By-the-way,” he said, without looking up, “Jenkins is going to represent the house in New York.  We think you had better take his place at Rosario.”

Strange drew himself up to attention.  He knew the old man liked his subordinates to receive momentous orders as if they came in the routine of the day.

“Very well, sir,” he said, quietly, betraying no sign of his excitement within.  Raising himself, Mr. Jarrott looked about uneasily, as if trying to find something else to say, while Strange began again to move toward the door.

“And Mrs. Jarrott—­”

Strange stopped so still that the senior partner paused with that air of gentlemanly awkwardness—­something like an Englishman’s—­which he took on when he had firmly made up his mind.

“Mrs. Jarrott,” he continued, “begs me to say she hopes you will—­a—­come and lunch with us on Sunday next.”

There was a long pause, during which the young man searched wildly for some formula that would soften his point-blank refusal.

“Mrs. Jarrott is awfully kind,” he began at last to stammer, “but if she would excuse me—­”

“She will expect you on Sunday at half-past twelve.”

The words were uttered with that barely perceptible emphasis which, as the whole house knew, implied that all had been said.

* * * * *