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Rh whose palm her slender fingers rested lightly for an instant ere she passed on, while he turned to bid the driver wait. Following, he overtook her in the entrance, where by tacit consent both paused and lingered in an odd constraint. There was so much to be said that was impossible to say just then.

Visibly the woman drooped, betraying physical exhaustion in every line of her pose, seeming scarcely strong enough to lift the silken lashes that trembled upon cheeks a little drawn and pale, with the faintest of bluish rings beneath the eyes.

"I must not keep you," Lanyard broke the silence. "I merely wished to say good-night and … I am sorry."

"Sorry?" she echoed.

"That you had such an unhappy experience," he explained—"thanks to your thoughtfulness for me. I do not deserve so much consideration; and that only makes me feel all the more regretful."

"It was silly of me," she admitted with a shadowy, rueful smile. "I'm afraid my silliness makes too much trouble. …"

He commented honestly: "I don't understand."

"If I had only been patient enough to wait for you to call me. …"

"Forgive that oversight. I was pressed for time, as you may imagine."

"Oh, it all comes back to my own stupidity. I might have known you had come through all right."

"How should you?"

"Why not?—when you turn up here in New York safe