‘I need not try to describe the effect this decision had upon both of us, suffice it to say that Annette, after a stormy scene, submitted to her father’s authority, leaving the art school and going for an indefinite visit to an aunt in the southern provinces. I, finding life without her insupportable in my old haunts, also left Paris, and, coming to London, obtained a position as artist with Messrs. Greer and Hood, the advertisement poster printers of Fleet Street. What with their salary and my spare time drawings for _Punch_ and other papers, I soon found myself in receipt of over a thousand a year, and then realised one of my ambitions and moved to a small villa in the suburbs, buying at the same time a two-seater to take me to and from my work. This villa, St. Malo, was situated near Brent, on the Great North Road. Here I settled down, alone except for an elderly housekeeper. I fitted up a large attic as a studio where I began studies for a picture I had in mind. ‘But before I had been a month in my new home, I developed a nasty attack of pneumonia. Martin, who was the nearest doctor, was called in, and so began the friendship from which your presence here to-day has resulted. ‘I lived a somewhat humdrum existence for some two years, and then one morning I had a pleasant surprise in the shape of a visit from my old friend, Pierre Bonchose. He explained that, having done pretty well in business, he had been sent to represent permanently his firm in London. He also told me that after a year of what he called “sulking,” his cousin Annette had, at her father’s desire, married a M. Boirac, a wealthy manufacturer, that he had seen her coming through Paris, and that she appeared to be quite happy. ‘Bonchose and I resumed our former intimacy, and, during the next summer, that is, two years ago, we had a walking tour through Cornwall. I mention this because of an incident which occurred near Penzance, and which profoundly modified our relations. While bathing in a deserted cove of that rocky coast, I was caught in an off-shore current and, in spite of all my efforts, found myself being carried out to sea. Bonchose, hearing my shouts, swam out after me and at the imminent risk of his own life assisted me back into still water. Though he made light of the matter, I could not forget the danger he had faced to save me, and I felt I had incurred a debt which I should be glad of an opportunity to pay.