were anything but pleasant. With an involuntary sigh he walked down to the Gar and, seating himself on a flat tombstone which set forth the virtues of Susan Peller, deceased, he let his chin sink on his hand, and gave himself up to dead memories--the memories of youth, of love, and of disappointment. A sudden flash of the dying sunlight gleamed over the river, turning its sullen, grey waters to a sheet of gold, and the sight brought back to his mind an hour when he was young, and he leaned over the parapet of a balcony, with a woman by his side, both looking at the shimmering Thames, golden in the sunset. He could recall it vividly, even after the lapse of these many years--the shining river, the confused mass of houses huddled under the dusky cloud of London smoke, and far away the swelling dome of St. Paul's looking aerial and fairy-like against the twilight sky, while above the great mass gleamed the golden cross shining in the firmament like the visionary symbol of Constantine. They were poor, not very well housed or fed, but the glamour of youth and hope was about them, and they saw in the shining river sweeping under the golden cross an omen of a happy future. Then the dream-picture grew faint and blurred, clouds swept across the golden heavens, and from amid the sombre gloom there looked forth a tearful woman's face with pitiful, appealing eyes. With an impatient sigh Beaumont roused himself from his day dream to find himself seated on a cold stone under a sky from whence the glory of the sunset had departed; and beside him silently stood a veiled woman. He jumped to his feet in surprise, feeling somewhat cramped, and was about to speak when the woman threw back her heavy veil, showing him the pitiful face of his dream. "Patience Allerby!" he gasped, recoiling a step.

"Patience Allerby," she replied, sternly, folding her hands in front of her black dress, "the very woman, Basil Beaumont, whom you loved, ruined and deserted in London more than twenty years ago."

Beaumont, with an effort, threw off the glamour of past thoughts which had haunted him all the afternoon, and, with a sneering laugh, relapsed once more into the bitter-tongued, cynical man of the world. He rapidly rolled a cigarette and, having lighted it, began to smoke, gazing critically meanwhile at the stern white face looking at him from out the shadowy twilight.

"More than twenty years ago!" he repeated, thoughtfully. "Humph! it's a long time--and now we meet again! You've altered, Patience--yes, altered a great deal--for the worse."She laughed bitterly. "I hardly think the life I have led since you left me was the kind to enable me to 

 Prev. P 53/253 next