When they were in the cab George asked Marie, 'How on earth did Mrs Parkinson know you were here?' In a very simple way. It appears that at the same boarding-house I lived when in New York a Mrs Burns also stayed. She and I were a good deal together, and as we were both coming to London, we exchanged our London addresses. She arrived in London three days ago. She called on the Parkinsons, who are friends of hers, and whom she had mentioned to me. Of course I did not recognise the name of Ethel's husband, for I had never heard it. She told the Parkinsons the day before yesterday she intended calling on me. Mrs Parkinson was struck by my name, and so it all came out.' George mused awhile at the strange ways things come about. Then he said, 'You were at the same table with Mrs Burns at New York. You visited to-day where she visited two days before. She, a perfect stranger to you, is the means of bringing you and your old friend together. At the same table sat Mr Nevill, whom you meet here accidentally, and you sit at the same table with him.' 'By the way,' said Marie, 'don't you think we have treated Mr Nevill very badly? I never thought of him till now.' 'After all,' said George, following his thought, 'to those who move about much the great world is no larger than a parish is to those who do not move about at all.' 'Don't you think we have treated Mr Nevill very badly?' she repeated. 'I really never thought of him until now.' 'I did not think of him either. What do you say, Kate?' 'I think we have not been very considerate.' 'But, Kate, have you thought of how wretchedly we have been treating him?' 'Yes.' Marie looked at George, rubbed the third finger of her left hand where, under her glove, lay the ring with five rubies. 'I beg your pardon,' said George. 'Did you speak?' 'How stupid men are!' said Marie, by way of comment on George's want of intelligence in not knowing she meant to call attention to Kate's vague but significant answer. Kate had often thought during the afternoon and evening that the cool way in which they had ignored him would give him additional cause to fancy they all--she among the number--considered him a fool. She had often during the evening seen, in her imagination, his plain face full of humiliation and pain at the way they had forgotten him who had hitherto formed a member of their parties and schemes. When they arrived at the boarding-house they learned Mr Nevill had gone out for the evening, and would not be in till midnight, or past midnight. 'So,' said Miss Gordon, 'we cannot apologise until to-morrow.' Neither brother nor sister said anything. When Kate got to her room that night she found a note on her dressing-table. It had come through the post. She looked long at the postmark. There was only one, 'E.C.,' of that day's date. She looked again at the writing. She felt perfectly certain she had never seen it before.