house, which once he had entered as a guest, where never again would he be suffered to pass the door.  Irene was here, he supposed, but could not be sure, for on the rare occasions when he saw Olga Hannaford they did not speak of her cousin.  Of the course her life had taken, he knew nothing whatever.  Here, in the chill bright morning, he felt more a stranger to Irene than on the day, six years ago, when with foolish timidity he ventured his useless call.  She was merely indifferent to him then; now she shrank from the sound of his name.

On such a morning, a few weeks later, he pursued his walk in the direction of Kensington, and passed along Queen’s Gate.  It was between seven and eight o’clock.  Nearing John Jacks house, he saw a carriage at the door; it could of course be only the doctor’s, and he became sad in thinking of his kind old friend, for whom the last days of life were made so hard.  Just as he was passing, the door opened, and a man, evidently a doctor, came quickly forth.  With movement as if he were here for this purpose, Otway ran up the steps; the servant saw him, and waited with the door still open.

“Will you tell me how Mr. Jacks is?” he asked.

“I am sorry to say, sir,” was the subdued answer, “that Mr. Jacks died at three this morning.”

Piers turned away.  His eyes dazzled in the sunshine.

The evening papers had the news, with a short memoir—­half of which was concerned not with John Jacks, but with his son Arnold.

It seemed to him just possible that he might receive an invitation to attend the funeral; but nothing of the kind came to him.  The slight, he took it for granted, was not social, but personal.  His name, of course, was offensive to Arnold Jacks, and probably to Mrs. John Jacks; only the genial old man had disregarded the scandal shadowing the Otway name.

On the morrow, it was made known that the deceased Member of Parliament would be buried in Yorkshire, in the village churchyard which was on his own estate.  And Otway felt glad of this; the sombre and crowded hideousness of a London cemetery was no place of rest for John Jacks.

A fortnight later, at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, Piers mounted with a quick stride the stairs leading to Miss Bonnicastle’s abode.  The door of her workroom stood ajar; his knock brought no response; after hesitating a little, he pushed the door open and went in.

Accustomed to the grotesques and vulgarities which generally met his eye upon these walls, he was startled to behold a life-size figure of great beauty, suggesting a study for a serious work of art rather than a design for a street poster.  It was a woman, in classic drapery, standing upon the seashore, her head thrown back, her magnificent hair flowing unrestrained, and one of her bare arms raised in a gesture of exultation.  As he gazed at the drawing with delight, Miss Bonnicastle appeared from the inner room, dressed for walking.