I looked beseechingly at Bessie.  Why wouldn’t she say that we too would be there in London lodgings?  Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might take the hint and leave us soon.

But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient resume of my own affairs.  Yes:  married quietly on Saturday; leave here on Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday’s steamer.  I could arrange it with my law-partners to be absent a little longer perhaps, that there might be some little rest and romance about the wedding-journey.

Two or three times in the course of that morning—­for she stayed with us all the morning—­Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and silence:  “He didn’t use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you.  It’s very disagreeable, sir—­not an improvement by any means.”

Then—­I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning rattle of a belle of two seasons—­she plunged into a description of a certain fete at Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first acquaintance:  “He was so young, Bessie, you can’t imagine, and blushed so beautifully that all the girls were jealous as could be.  We were very good friends—­weren’t we?—­all that summer?”

“And are still, I hope,” said I with my most sweeping bow.  “What have I done to forfeit Miss Meyrick’s esteem?”

“Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick Place than you do now.  Well, I won’t scold you for that:  I shall make up for that on the other side.”

What did she mean?  She had no other meaning than that she would have such compensation in English society that her American admirers would not be missed.  She did not know of my going abroad.

But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to her, as though some dawning suspicion had come to her.  “I hope,” she said quietly, “that you may have a pleasant winter.  It will be delightful, won’t it, Charlie?”

“Oh, very!” I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like.

“Charlie,” said Miss Meyrick suddenly, “do you remember what happened two years ago to-day?”

“No, I think not.”

Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold, she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page:  it was open at September 28th.

“Read it,” said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes.

“‘September 28th’” Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange constraint in them, “’Charlie Munro saved my life.  I shall love him for ever and ever.  We were out in a boat, we two, on the Hudson—­moonlight—­I was rowing.  Dropt my oar into the water.  Leaned out after it and upset the boat.  Charlie caught me and swam with me to shore.’”

A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand.