The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various topics. By degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, friendless, and on his way to the great city to battle with fortune. I may have told her of my history, of my youthful ambitions and my professional plans,--anyway she told me of hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she confessed to me her troubles. "My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, and I married a well-known professional London man. He turned out to be a gambler, and ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been a guest." I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top. She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it, and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy one. After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew his face,--I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married twice,--I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are,--I'll tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true--I'm her husband!"