Tavernake opened the outside door with a small key and they passed into the street.

“London Bridge Station is just across the way,” he said.  “The refreshment room will be open and we can get some breakfast at once.”

“What time is it?” she asked.

“About half-past seven.”

She walked by his side quite meekly, and although there were many things which she was longing to say, she remained absolutely without the power of speech.  Except that he was looking a little crumpled, there was nothing whatever in his appearance to indicate that he had been up all night.  He looked exactly as he had done on the previous day, he seemed even quite unconscious that there was anything unusual in their relations.  As soon as they arrived at the station, he pointed to the ladies’ waiting-room.

“If you will go in and arrange your hair there,” he said, “I will go and order breakfast and have a shave.  I will be back here in about twenty minutes.  You had better take this.”

He offered her a shilling and she accepted it without hesitation.  As soon as he had gone, however, she looked at the coin in her hand in blank wonder.  She had accepted it from him with perfect naturalness and without even saying “Thank you!” With a queer little laugh, she pushed open the swinging doors and made her way into the waiting-room.

In hardly more than a quarter of an hour she emerged, to find Tavernake waiting for her.  He had retied his tie, bought a fresh collar, had been shaved.  She, too, had improved her appearance.

“Breakfast is waiting this way,” he announced.

She followed him obediently and they sat down at a small table in the station refreshment-room.

“Mr. Tavernake,” she asked, suddenly, “I must ask you something.  Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

“Nothing,” he assured her, with some emphasis.

“You seem to take everything so much as a matter of course,” she protested.

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she replied, a little feebly.  “Only -”

She found relief in a sudden and perfectly natural laugh.

“Come,” he said, “that is better.  I am glad that you feel like laughing.”

“As a matter of fact,” she declared, “I feel much more like crying.  Don’t you know that you were very foolish last night?  You ought to have left me alone.  Why didn’t you?  You would have saved yourself a great deal of trouble.”

He nodded, as though that point of view did, in some degree, commend itself to him.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I suppose I should.  I do not, even now, understand why I interfered.  I can only remember that it didn’t seem possible not to at the time.  I suppose one must have impulses,” he added, with a little frown.

“The reflection,” she remarked, helping herself to another roll, “seems to annoy you.”

“It does,” he confessed.  “I do not like to feel impelled to do anything the reason for which is not apparent.  I like to do just the things which seem likely to work out best for myself.”