Then, ere I had time to think, the door, which Mrs. Vernon had softly closed, was softly opened, and a woman entered. It was Lucy, once Lucy Wren. She was as beautiful as ever, and no older. But her face was the face of one who had learnt the meaning of life. Till that moment I had sought everywhere for reasons to condemn her conduct towards me, to intensify its wickedness. Now, suddenly, I began to seek everywhere for reasons to excuse her. She had been so young, so guileless, so ignorant. I had been too stern for her. I had frightened her. How could she be expected to know that the man who had supplanted me was worthless? She had acted as she did partly from youthful foolishness and partly from timidity. She had been in a quandary. She had lost her head. And so it had occurred that one night, that night in August, she had kissed me falsely, with a lie on her lips, knowing that her jilting letter was already in the post. What pangs she must have experienced then! Yes, as she entered the room and gazed at me with her blue eyes, my heart overflowed with genuine sorrow for her. “Lucy!” I murmured, “you are in mourning!” “Yes,” she said. “Didn’t you know? Has Mrs. Vernon said nothing? He is dead.” And she sank down by the side of my chair and hid her face, and I could only see her honey-coloured hair. I stroked it. I knew all her history, in that supreme moment, without a word of explanation. I knew that she had been self-deceived, that she had been through many an agony, that she had always loved me.... And she was so young, so young. I kissed her hair. * * * * * “How thankful I am!” breathed Mrs. Vernon afterwards. “Suppose it had not turned out well!” Jack Vernon had calculated with some skill. When he came back, the constraint, the diffidence, was at an end. A DINNER AT THE LOUVRE. The real name of this renowned West-End restaurant is not the Louvre. I have christened it so because the title seems to me to suit it very nicely, and because a certain disguise is essential. The proprietors of the Louvre--it belongs to an esteemed firm of caterers--would decidedly object to the coupling of the name of their principal establishment with an affair so curious and disconcerting as that which I am about to relate. And their objection would be perfectly justifiable. Nevertheless, the following story is a true one, and the details of it are familiar to at least half a dozen persons whose business it is, for one reason or another, to keep an eye upon that world of crime and pleasure, which is bounded on the east by Bow Street and on the left by Hyde Park Corner.