respect, since it deadened the sound of the wheels of my hansom, and the wintry flakes still falling served as a sort of veil to conceal the fact that the cab was being followed. The destination of the veiled lady appeared to be some place in North London, for the vehicle she was in[Pg 28] proceeded along St. Martin's Lane, and turned up Long Acre into Drury Lane. Thence its progress was across Oxford Street, and up Southampton Row, till it finally turned into the Euston Road. [Pg 28] "I have it!" I cried. "She is going to Euston Station!" All hope of tracing the mysterious lady to her final destination must now be abandoned. If she were going by train to some distant part of the country it was out of the question to follow her. I must be at the wedding. But I was wrong in my hasty surmise. The cab did not proceed to the station, but turned to the left along the Euston Road, stopping at last in front of an obscure public-house; and the cabman, flinging down the reins, descended from the box and entered the building. "She surely isn't going to get out there," I thought. "Go on slowly," I said to my driver, who, peeping through the lid in the roof, asked whether he should proceed. We drove past the cab, and one glance sufficed to show that the vehicle was empty. My surprise found vent in language which the most charitably disposed of my friends could not have construed into a doxology. "You've followed the wrong cab!" I cried savagely to my driver. "Not I, governor. That 'ere is the wehicle you told me to follow: No. 2071. It's my pal's—Bill Whippam's—cab. That's him as is in the pub now—he's a rare 'un for the booze." In a moment I was inside the public-house. The "rare 'un for the booze" was ringing a golden coin on the counter of the bar, as if to test its genuineness. "A good 'un!" he cried delightedly, "Blow me tight if I didn't think it was a duffer for the minute! She's[Pg 29] something like a fare, she is! A glass of the usual, Jim, with a little lemon and——" [Pg 29] "Where is your fare, cabby?" I demanded brusquely. "What's that got to do with you, governor?" was the immediate retort.
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