Chance

But there was nothing improper in my observing to Fyne that, last night,

Mrs. Fyne seemed to have some idea where that enterprising young lady had

gone to. Fyne shook his head. No; his wife had been by no means so

certain as she had pretended to be. She merely had her reasons to think,

to hope, that the girl might have taken a room somewhere in London, had

buried herself in town--in readiness or perhaps in horror of the

approaching day-He ceased and sat solemnly dejected, in a brown study. "What day?" I

asked at last; but he did not hear me apparently. He diffused such

portentous gloom into the atmosphere that I lost patience with him.

"What on earth are you so dismal about?" I cried, being genuinely

surprised and puzzled. "One would think the girl was a state prisoner

under your care."

And suddenly I became still more surprised at myself, at the way I had

somehow taken for granted things which did appear queer when one thought

them out.

"But why this secrecy? Why did they elope--if it is an elopement? Was

the girl afraid of your wife? And your brother-in-law? What on earth

possesses him to make a clandestine match of it? Was he afraid of your

wife too?"

Fyne made an effort to rouse himself.

"Of course my brother-in-law, Captain Anthony, the son of . . . " He

checked himself as if trying to break a bad habit. "He would be

persuaded by her. We have been most friendly to the girl!"

"She struck me as a foolish and inconsiderate little person. But why

should you and your wife take to heart so strongly mere folly--or even a

want of consideration?"

"It's the most unscrupulous action," declared Fyne weightily--and sighed.

"I suppose she is poor," I observed after a short silence. "But after

all . . . "

"You don't know who she is." Fyne had regained his average solemnity.

I confessed that I had not caught her name when his wife had introduced

us to each other. "It was something beginning with an S- wasn't it?" And

then with the utmost coolness Fyne remarked that it did not matter. The

name was not her name.

"Do you mean to say that you made a young lady known to me under a false

name?" I asked, with the amused feeling that the days of wonders and

portents had not passed away yet. That the eminently serious Fynes

should do such an exceptional thing was simply staggering. With a more

hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne was sure that I would not demand

an apology for this irregularity if I knew what her real name was. A

sort of warmth crept into his deep tone.