One Sunday morning, two years before, he had been riding his motor-cycle up to Hatfield, as was his habit, to meet at the Red Lion--that old inn that is the rendezvous of all motor-cyclists--the men and women who come out there each Sunday morning, wet or fine, from London. Fine cars, driven by their owners, turn into the inn-yard all the morning, but the motor-cyclist ignores them. It is the meeting-place of the man on the cycle. One well-remembered Sunday morning Elise, who was advanced enough to put on a Burberry with a leather strap around her waist and sit astride on a motor-cycle, was careering up the North Road beyond Barnet when, of a sudden, she swerved to avoid a cart, and ran headlong into a ditch. At the moment Jack Sainsbury, who chanced to be behind her, stopped, sprang off, and went to her assistance. She lay in the ditch with her arm broken. Quickly he obtained medical aid, and eventually brought her home to Fitzjohn's Avenue, where he had, with her father's knowledge and consent, been a constant visitor ever since. Jack Sainsbury, whose father, and his family before him, had been gentlemen-farmers for two centuries in Leicestershire, was, above all, a thorough-going Englishman. He was no smug, get-on-at-all-hazards person of the consumptive type one meets at every turn in the City. On the contrary, he was a well-set-up, bold, straightforward, fearless fellow who, though but a clerk in a City office, was one of that clean-limbed, splendid type which any girl would have welcomed as her hero. What Jack Sainsbury said, he meant. His colleagues in the office knew that. They all regarded him as a man of high ideals, and as one whose heart had, ever since the war, been fired with a keen and intense spirit of patriotism. That Elise Shearman loved him could be seen at the first moment when he had opened the door and crossed the threshold. Her eyes brightened, and her full, red lips puckered sweetly as she returned his fond, passionate kisses. Yes, they loved each other. Elise's parents knew that. Sometimes they were anxious, for Dan Shearman felt that it would not be altogether a brilliant match, as far as an alliance went. Yet Mrs Shearman, on her part, had so often pleaded, that no separation of the pair had, as yet, been demanded. Hence they found idyllic happiness in each other's love. "You seem unusually thoughtful to-night, Jack!" exclaimed the girl, tenderly smoothing his hair as they stood together clasped in each other's arms. "Do I?" he answered with a start. "I really didn't know," he laughed, aroused from his deep thoughts. "You are, Jack. Why?" "I--well, I'm really not--except perhaps--" "Perhaps what?" asked Elise determinedly. "Well, I had rather a heavy day at the office," was her lover's hesitating reply. "And I've just remembered something." "Oh! business. And that's all?"