Merrington lit his pipe with deliberation. In the light of the match Peggie saw his eyes, bright and humorous, fixed on her face. “I told her she loved me,” he said, between puffs. “What does that imply?” “You didn’t!” was Peggie’s unsatisfactory answer. Then she was silent for quite five minutes. She entirely approved, however, of his purpose, expressed a little later, to go up to the city for a few days. “And take my advice,” she said, rising to leave him, “and forget that you ever laid eyes on Miss Selwyn. You’ve done the one unpardonable thing in a woman’s sight.” * * * * * After his luncheon the next day, Merrington was aimlessly standing on the corner of Broadway and Twenty-sixth Street when the clang of bells and the shriek of a fire-engine whistle dashed the purposeless hour with an instant’s interest. By some occult power, the drivers of several coupés and hansoms, impelled by the same thought of safety and curiosity, turned their vehicles into the short side street between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, pausing there to see the engine tear by. By a further process of this psychic power, one and all suddenly became aware that the street they blocked was the street for which the rapidly driven horses were heading. Merrington, with a quick thrill of excitement, straightened his height, watching the now thoroughly frenzied _impasse_. At that moment a swiftly driven hansom turned for refuge into the congested street, the clatter and frantic signals of the engine just behind. Then his heart leaped, and fell down, for the girl in the hansom, heedless of her danger, was Jacqueline. How he forced his way through the crowd that had gathered before him, sprang before the rearing and terrified horses of the engine checked in full flight, tore open the doors of the hansom and lifted out the girl, Merrington could not have said. As he did so, however, the engine tore on, carrying with it a wheel of the hansom. Jacqueline, white and shaken, stood in his arms. “You!” she gasped. “I might say the same,” he answered, the blood coming back under his bronze, but he seemed to speak with a very dry humor, indeed, for his eyes were fixed upon her, dark almost beyond her recognition. Her own drooped, as she shuddered slightly. “Don’t faint,” he begged, in quick alarm. She shook her head. “I thought you were down there,” she murmured. “I came away that you might have the sea to yourself. That is, I thought I came. It must be that I was sent.” “I came away for the same reason,” she confessed. She was quite aware that the colors of her resentment against him were flying very low, but two things, at least, kept her humble. She had been badly frightened, and her hat was awry. Somewhere about her there was a third reason that, as she became conscious of it, made her abruptly stand away from him and at once cloak her humility. “I need not trouble you any more. You have been very good.”