Her carriage was called. She walked towards it with her dress sweeping round her, and the other people fell back, and let her pass, naturally, and not by the urgency of the dingy officials who brawl and fight on such occasions. When she had taken her seat in the carriage, Routh followed her, and then Jim started forward. There was no footman, so the man with the badge and the lantern, well known and prized of unprotected females with a taste for theatre-going, asked, "Where to?" Jim, quite close, and totally unobserved, listened eagerly. The lady's voice replied, "Home." "Home," said the man with the lantern, and instantly turned his attention to the next departures. Jim Swain glanced at the carriage; it had no rumble, only a footboard. As it drove off slowly, for the Strand was crowded, he dashed into the jumble of cabs and omnibuses and followed it, running desperately, but dexterously too, and succeeded in keeping up with it until, at a point of comparative obscurity, he clambered up on the footboard. The carriage rolled westward, and carried Jim Swain with it until it reached one of the small so-called squares which are situated between Brompton proper and Chelsea. Then it stopped before a house with a heavy stone portico and a heavy stone balcony. Jim slid lightly to the ground, and hid himself in the shelter of the heavy stone portico of the adjoining house. Routh got out of the carriage; and when the house-door was opened, and a flood of light issued from it, he handed out the lady. She stood breathing the sweet air a moment, and the light once more touched her face and her dress with a rich radiance. "It's her," said Jim. "It's her--_her_ and _him_." "What a lovely night!" said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge, and then the door closed on her and Routh, and Jim stood still in his hiding-place until the carriage had slowly departed to the adjacent mews. Then he emerged from the portico, went up the steps of the house the lady and her companion had entered, and looked at the number on the door, distinctly visible by the light of the gas-jet within. "Number four," said Jim; "now for the name of the square;" and he crossed the road, skirted the railings of the enclosed patch of brown ground and stunted shrubs, and took the opposite side of the way. The night was clear and bright, and the name of the square was distinctly legible. "Hollington-square," said Jim. "They called Mrs. Bembridge's carriage. I have not a bad head for names, but I'll get Teddy Smith to write these down. And I can't stand it any longer; I must do something. I'll try and get Mr. Dallas to let me speak to him when he comes from abroad, and then I'll tell him all about it. I suppose," said Jim very ruefully, "if he thinks right to tell, they'll lag me; but it can't be helped. Almost every one as I've knowed gets lagged some time or other." CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FALLING OF THE SWORD.