And then there had come an August morning—­the following Monday, to be exact—­when, his coffee untasted, he had sat staring at a paragraph in the financial column of a London paper, not daring to lay it down for fear she would pick it up.  It gave a full and detailed account of the discovery of a series of certificates bearing duplicate numbers, said duplicates claiming to be the genuine shares of the Bawhadder Rubber Co., Ltd.  It also hinted at a searching investigation about to be made by a financial committee of the highest standing at its next regular meeting, but a few days off.  More important still was a crisp editorial, charging the directors of the aforesaid company, and particularly its promoter—­name withheld—­with irregularities of the gravest import.

And it was on this same Monday morning—­another pinhole, made with a big black pin would serve best here—­before the stone-cold coffee and the dry, uneaten toast had been sent away, that there had arrived a most important telegram (that is, Dalton had said it had arrived) ordering him back to London on business of the utmost importance.  So urgent were the summons that he was forced to leave at once—­so he explained to the manager of the hotel—­and as madame wished to avoid the night journey by way of Ostend —­the channel being almost always rough, even in summer, and she easily disturbed—­he had decided to take the shorter and more comfortable route, and would the urbane and obliging gentleman please secure two tickets to London by way of Calais and Dover?  This would give them a day in Paris at the house of a friend, and the next morning would see them safely landed in London, in ample time for the business in question.

The pins can be dispensed with now; so can the pencil and so can any special entries.  Henceforth life for these two exiles was to be one long toboggan slide, with every post they passed marking a lower level.  The sled with its occupants made no stop at Paris nor did it go by way of Calais nor did it reach Dover.  It swooped on down to Havre, the steamer sailing an hour after the train arrived, crossed the ocean at full speed, and dumped its two passengers one hot August night in front of a cheap and inconspicuous hotel on the East Side, New York, where Mr. and Mrs. Stanton, from Toronto, Canada, would he at home, should anybody call—­which, it is quite safe to say, nobody ever did.

No, nothing of all this did the heart-broken woman tell the tender old nurse, who had carried her in her arms many a night, and who was now willing to sacrifice everything she possessed to give her mistress one hour of peace.

Nor did she tell of the shock which she, a woman of quality, had received when she entered the two cheaply furnished rooms, her only shelter for months, and which, to a woman accustomed from babyhood to a luxurious home and the care of attentive and loyal servants, had affected her more keenly than anything that had yet happened.