The Reef

tacle. Please don't

a discharge of musketry,letting them, one by one, drip slowly and coldly into hisbrain, or shaking, tossing, transposing them like the dicein some game of the gods of malice; and now, as he emergedfrom

cle. Please don't c

certain thatthis reason, like the other, (the visit of her husband'suncle's widow) would be "good"! But it was that verycertainty which chilled him. The fact of her deal

pon her unexpected face,with the dark hair banded above grave eyes; eyes in which hehad recognized every little curve and shadow as he wouldhave recognized, after half a life-time, the details of aroom he had played in as a child. And as, in the plumedstarred crowd, she had stood out for him, slender, secludedand different,

eir distracted Ambas

blyemphasizing the exclamation: "Isn't it wonderful?--InLondon--in the season--in a mob?"Little enough, on the part of most women; but it was a signof Mrs. Leath's quality that every movement, every syllable,told with h

ath, and of her subsequent life in France, whereher husband's mother, left a widow in his youth, had beenre-married to the Marquis de Chantelle, and where, partly inconsequence of this second union, the son had permanentlysettled himself. She

used him to thefact that he still obstructed th

the porter to theluggage van, singled out his property, and turned to marchbehind it down the gang-way. As the

rter threw back at himas they beat thei

as it had turned out,there was no ea

andsince he had met her again he had been exercising hisimagination on the picture of what her married life musthave been. Her husband had struck him as a characteristicspec

imself more openly, and with religiousseriousness, to the collection of enamelled snuff-boxes. Hewas blond and well-dressed, with the physical distinctionthat comes from having a straight figure,

ionthere could have been between Mr. Leath and his wife.

band's having failed tojustify her choi

inhistory; and what she said sounded as though it had beenlearned by heart and slightly dulled by repetition.

clusions. Asa result, he had taken leave of her with the sense that hewas a being singled out and privileged, to whom she hadentrusted something precious to keep. It

e of southern England. The presence of alarge party, with all its aimless and agitateddisplacements, had served only to isolate the pair and givethem (at least to the young man's fancy

what was soinevitably coming was not to come too soon. It was not thatshe showed any hesitation as to the

rt, was content to w

ypath. Without hastening her step she had smiled and signedto him to wait; and charmed by the lights and shadows thatplayed upon her as she moved, and by the pleasure ofwatching her slow advance toward him, he had obeyed her andstood still. And so she seemed now to be walking to him downth

r, she left without giving Darrow thechance he had counted on, and he cursed himself for adilatory blunderer. Still, his disappoint

that she avoided him, or eventhat she was a shade less glad to see him; but she

shadow of this lady'spresence--pervasive even during her actual brief eclipses--that subdued and silenced Mrs. Leath. The latter was,moreover, preoccupied about her stepson, who, soon afterreceiving his deg

in France, and having to devote theremaining hours to long shopping expeditions with hermother-in-law. Nevertheless, during her brief escapes fromduty, Darrow had had time to feel her safe in the custo

out his ears, Darrowcontinued to he

act that, with her mother-in-law always,and her stepson intermittently, under her roof, her lotinvolved a hundred small accommodations generally foreign tothe freedom of widowhood--even so, he could not but thinkthat the very ingenuity bred of su

w weeks, havesubmitted so tamely to the disarrangement of their plans; adisarrangement which--his off

had had to hew his way through a very jungle ofengagements! "Please don't come till thirtieth." That wasall. Not the shadow of an excuse or a regret; not even theperfunctory "have written" with which it is usual to softensuch blows. She

have refused in the samelanguage. But

is harsh end of the stormy May day, have beensitting before his club fire in London instead of shiveringin the damp human herd on the pier. Admitting the sex'straditional right to change, she might at least have advisedhim of hers by telegraphing

hejammed his way through the crowd, the main point of hisgrievance against her and of his derision of himself. Hal

domes. The wind rose with therain, and the harried wretches exposed to this double

rala good traveller, tolerant of agglutinated humanity, fe

hey werecontemptuously bumping and shoving him like theinconsiderable thing he had become. "She do

cause the sender a malicious joy to have him retrace hissteps rather than keep on to Paris! Now he perceived theabsurd

perceiving that he had lost sightof the man, he scrambled up again to the platform. As hereached it, a descending umbrella caught him in the

ered its inverted ribs, andlooked

rms, and regaining her footing she cried out: "Oh,dear, oh, dear! It's in ribbons!"Her lifted face, fresh and flushed in the driving rain, wokein him a memory of having se

atthe tattered umbrella. "I bought it only yesterday at

the moralist that, side by side with such catastrophesas his, h

!" he shouted back at her thr

nition: "Oh, thank you! We'll share it, ifyou will."She knew him, then; and he knew her; but how and where hadthey met? He put a

coveredproperty, and the news that the boat would not

re of a young female who had lost hertrunk; but at the moment he was glad of any pretext foractivity. Even should he decide to take the next

my trunk; I've no other--" and then addedbriskly: "You'd better first see to getting your own thingson the boat."This made him answer, as if to give substance to his plansby discussi

likemarionettes on the wires of the wind, he continued to wonderwhere he could have seen her. He had immediately classedher as a compatriot; her small nose, her clear tints, a kindof sketchy delicacy in her face, as though she had beenbrightly but lightly washed in with water-colour, allconfirmed the evidence of her high sweet voice and of herquick incessant gestures

and distasteful. So pleasant a vision as thatgleaming up at him between wet brown hair and wet brown boashould have evoked only ass