"Dear me," he said to himself, "the plot thickens!" and then he suddenly told himself that of course she was going back to the hospital. The person she was going to see had asked for an evening paper, and in her generosity she had bought them all. But on the bridge she stayed her steps, and, opening one of the papers, spread it out against the parapet, and began eagerly reading it, unheeding of the human stream flowing to and fro behind her. Ryecroft gently approached closer and closer to her, and at last he was able to see what it was she was bending over and reading with such intentness: "_General Lingard's Home-coming._" "_Splendid Reception at Victoria Station._" So was the column headed, and already her eyes had travelled down to the last paragraph: "To conclude: by his defeat of the great Mahomedan Emir of Bobo, General Lingard has added to the British Crown another magnificent jewel in the Sultanate of Amadawa." Then came a cross-head--"Pen Portrait." "Lingard is above all things a fighter. His eye is keen, alert, passionless. He is a tall man, and he dominates those with whom he stands. His life as a soldier has been from the beginning a wooing of peril, and as a result he has commanded a victorious expedition at an age when his seniors are hoping to command a regiment. He does not talk as other men talk--he is no teller of 'good stories.' He is a Man." Jane Oglander looked up, and there came a glow--a look of proud, awed gladness on her face. Then, folding the paper, she walked steadily on. But though she crossed over the bridge as if she were going to the hospital, to the side entrance where visitors are admitted, she walked on past the mass of buildings. Then she turned sharply to the left, Ryecroft still following, till she came to a small row of houses, respectable, but poor and mean in appearance, in a narrow street which was redeemed to a certain extent by the fact that there was a Queen Anne church at one end of it, and next to the church a substantial rectory or vicarage house. To Ryecroft's measureless astonishment, she opened her purse, took out a latch-key and let herself into the front-door of one of the small houses.... Three weeks later Henry Ryecroft happened to be in that same neighbourhood, and he suddenly remembered his Lady of Westminster Bridge. Greatly daring--but he ever loved such daring--he rang at the door of the house at which he had seen her go in. A typical Londoner of the hard-working, self-respecting class answered his ring. She stood for a moment looking at him, waiting for him to speak. "Is the lady in?" he asked, feeling suddenly ashamed and foolish. "I mean the young lady who lives here." "Miss Oglander?" said the woman. "No, she's away. But I'll give you her address." She handed him a piece of paper on which was written in what he thought was a singularly pretty handwriting:--