"She left New York several weeks ago,--didn't you know it? Dear me!--I thought everybody was convulsed at the news!"

The speaker, a young woman fashionably attired and seated in a rocking chair in the verandah of a favourite summer hotel on Long Island, raised her eyes and shrugged her shoulders expressively as she uttered these words to a man standing near her with a newspaper in his hand. He was a very stiff-jointed upright personage with iron grey hair and features hard enough to suggest their having been carved out of wood.

"No--I didn't know it"--he said, enunciating his words in the deliberate dictatorial manner common to a certain type of American--"If I had I should have taken steps to prevent it."

"You can't take steps to prevent anything Morgana Royal decides to do!" declared his companion. "She's a law to herself and to nobody else. I guess YOU couldn't stop her, Mr. Sam Gwent!"

Mr. Sam Gwent permitted himself to smile. It was a smile that merely stretched the corners of his mouth a little,--it had no geniality.

"Possibly not!" he answered--"But I should have had a try! I should certainly have pointed out to her the folly of her present adventure."

"Do you know what it is?"

He paused before replying.

"Well,--hardly! But I have a guess!"