There was a little writing-room at one side of the hall and I sat there to write my telegram.  It ran—­

“Please send name and address reliable solicitor London whom I can consult on important business.”

I was holding the telegraph-form in my hand and reading my message again and again to make sure that it would lead to no mischief, when I began to think of Martin Conrad.

It seemed to me that some one had mentioned his name, but I told myself that must have been a mistake,—­that, being so helpless and so much in need of a friend at that moment, my heart and not my ears had heard it.

Nevertheless as I sat holding my telegraph-form I became conscious of somebody who was moving about me.  It was a man, for I could smell the sweet peaty odour of his Harris tweeds.

At length with that thrill which only the human voice can bring to us when it is the voice of one from whom we have been long parted, I heard somebody say, from the other side of the desk: 

“Mary, is it you?”

I looked up, the blood rushed to my face and a dazzling mist floated before my eyes, so that for a moment I could hardly see who was there.  But I knew who it was—­it was Martin himself.

He came down on me like a breeze from the mountain, took me by both hands, telegram and all, and said: 

“My goodness, this is stunning!”

I answered, as well as I could for the confusion that overwhelmed me.

“I’m so glad, so glad!”

“How well you are looking!  A little thin, perhaps, but such a colour!”

“I’m so glad, so glad!” I repeated, though I knew I was only blushing.

“When did you arrive?”

I told him, and he said: 

“We came into port only yesterday.  And to think that you and I should come to the same hotel and meet on the very first morning!  It’s like a fate, as our people in the island say.  But it’s stunning, perfectly stunning!”

A warm tide of joy was coursing through me and taking away my breath, but I managed to say: 

“I’ve heard about your expedition.  You had great hardships.”

“That was nothing!  Just a little pleasure-trip down to the eighty-sixth latitude.”

“And great successes?”

“That was nothing either.  The chief was jolly good, and the boys were bricks.”

“I’m so glad, so glad!” I said again, for a kind of dumb joy had taken possession of me, and I went on saying the same thing over and over again, as people do when they are very happy.

For two full minutes I felt happier than I had ever been in my life before; and then an icy chill came over me, for I remembered that I had been married since I saw Martin Conrad last and I did not know how I was to break the news to him.

Just then my husband and Alma came down the lift, and seeing me with a stranger, as they crossed the hall to go into the breakfast-room, they came up and spoke.