“Did you find out who she was?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Jill, feeling in her pocket. “I have her card. She was very gracious, and wished me to apply to her if I wanted money, hinting delicately at a doctor’s fee, or something of the sort. I took her card out of curiosity, and walked into the nearest chemists’, having the satisfaction of hearing her say to someone as I went, that she would see that I had compensation, poor girl! so stupid to have run right in front of her wheel.”

“Prig!” muttered St. John.

“There’s the card. You can throw it into the fire when you’ve done with it; I shall make no application.”

He took it from her, glanced at it, and then gave vent to an involuntary exclamation of surprise. Jill looked up.

“You know the name?” she questioned.

“Rather!”

“A friend of yours?”

“Well—yes, I suppose so; she’s a sort of connection.”

Jill compressed her mouth, and stared fixedly at the fire; the situation was a little awkward.

“Being a relation of yours,” she began in a slightly strained voice, “I’m sorry that I said what I did, but—well, you yourself, called her a prig, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, and then he tore the card in two, angrily, and threw it into the flames.

“She couldn’t, perhaps, have avoided the accident,” Jill went on, “and she meant to kind, but she doesn’t possess much tact.”

“No,” he agreed, “she doesn’t. You must allow me to apologise for her. After all there is some slight excuse for her gaucherie; she has been spoilt with a superabundance of this world’s goods—quarter of a million of money is rather inclined to blunt the finer sensibilities.”

“Quarter of a million!” gasped Jill. “Oh, dear me, I would like the chance of having my finer sensibilities blunted.”

She laughed a little, but St. John was looking so gloomy that her mirth died away almost as soon as it had risen.

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