One winter day in 1895—­it was a Sunday—­when fog lay thickly over London, Rosamund Everard sat alone in a house in Great Cumberland Place, reading Dante’s “Paradiso.”  Her sister, Beatrice, a pale, delicate and sensitive shadow who adored her, and her guardian, Bruce Evelin, a well-known Q.C. now retired from practice, had gone into the country to visit some friends.  Rosamund had also been invited, and much wanted, for there was a party in the house, and her gaiety, her beauty, and her fine singing made her a desirable guest; but she had “got out of it.”  On this particular Sunday she specially wished to be in London.  At a church not far from Great Cumberland Place—­St. Mary’s, Welby Street—­a man was going to preach that evening whom she very much wanted to hear.  Her guardian’s friend, Canon Wilton, had spoken to her about him, and had said to her once, “I should particularly like you to hear him.”  And somehow the simple words had impressed themselves upon her.  So, when she heard that Mr. Robertson was coming from his church in Liverpool to preach at St. Mary’s, she gave up the country visit to hear him.

Beatrice and Bruce Evelin had no scruples in leaving her alone for a couple of days.  They knew that she, who had such an exceptional faculty for getting on with all sorts and conditions of men and women, and who always shed sunshine around her, had within her a great love of, sometimes almost a thirst for, solitude.

“I need to be alone now and then,” they had heard her say; “it’s like drinking water to me.”

Sitting quietly by the fire with her delightful edition of Dante, her left hand under her head, her tall figure stretched out in a low chair, Rosamund heard a bell ring below.  It called her from the “Paradiso.”  She sprang up, remembering that she had given the butler no orders about not wishing to be disturbed.  At lunch-time the fog had been so dense that she had not thought about possible visitors; she hurried to the head of the staircase.

“Lurby!  Lurby!  I’m not at—­”

It was too late.  The butler must have been in the hall.  She heard the street door open and a man’s voice murmuring something.  Then the door shut and she heard steps.  She retreated into the drawing-room, pulling down her brows and shaking her head.  No more “Paradiso,” and she loved it so!  A moment before she had been far away.

The book was lying open on the arm-chair in which she had been sitting.  She went to close it and put it on a table.  For an instant she looked down on the page, and immediately her dream returned.  Then Lurby’s dry, soft voice said behind her: 

“Mr. Leith, ma’am.”

“Oh!” She turned, leaving the book.

Directly she looked at Dion Leith she knew why he had come.

“I’m all alone,” Rosamund said.  “I stayed here, instead of going to Sherrington with Beattie and my guardian, because I wanted to hear a sermon this evening.  Come and sit down by the fire.”