“Adjust that impression. She left me less than a sufficiency--nothing approaching amplitude. To the best of my ability I have fulfilled my task. It has been hard. I do not complain. I do not ask you for repayment of any excess that may have been incurred. But I am embittered by yet further demands. I have been too liberal. Had I meted out strict justice as I have striven to mete out kindness, my grey hairs would not be speeding in poverty to the grave. I am Wolsey.” Upon Wolsey George slammed the door; started for the station. IV. Palace Gardens, St. John's Wood, was his aim. There could be no work, nor even thought of work, until again he had met his lady. Yet how to meet her cost him another of the wrestles with conjecture that had been his lot since the cab carried her away. At first it was easy work. He would call, he decided, with polite inquiries; and as he pictured the scene his spirits rose. The thunder-figure that had poked a bow at him from the cab would come dragonish into the drawing-room where he waited. Her he would charm with the suavity of his manners; she would doff the dragon's skin; would say (he had read the scene in novels), “You would like to see Miss So-and-so?” The girl would come in .... With her appearance in his thoughts George's mind swung from coherent reasoning into a delectable phantasy .... A sudden thought swept the filmy clouds-landed him with a bump upon hard rock. He was not supposed to know their address. How, to the dragon, could he explain the venal trick by which he had acquired it? Now he beheld a new picture. Himself in the drawing-room; to him the dragon; her first words, “How did you know where we lived?”; his miserable answer. This was very unpleasant. As a red omnibus took him on towards St. John's Wood he decided that the meeting must be otherwise effected. The girl must sometimes go out. She had called herself a mother's-help; it suggested children; and, if children, doubtless her task to take them walking. Well, he would take up a post near to the house, and wait--just wait. And then there came a final thought that struck him cold and staring. What if she did not live at the house?--was merely about to visit there when the accident befell the cab? It was a sorely agitated young man that stepped off the 'bus and struck up Palace Gardens. BOOK II. Of his Mary. CHAPTER I. Excursions In The Memory Of A Heroine. I. AS that cab swung round the corner bearing away the nameless haunter of George's dreams, she to the red wrath beside her turned, and, “Oh, Mrs. Chater,” she said, “I hope you are not hurt!”