BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Susannah and One Other
Love and Louisa
Peter a Parasite
The Blunder of an Innocent
"GOD HAS A FEW OF US WHOM
HE WHISPERS IN THE EAR"
BROWNING
First Published . . . September, 1904
Second Edition . . . May, 1905
This story originally appeared in the Weekly Edition of The Times,and is now issued in book form by arrangement with the proprietors ofthat journal.
As the large motor swung along with the easy velocity and assurance ofsome enormous bird, Camilla Lancing nestled more cosily into the warmthof her fur wraps.
Rupert Haverford was driving, and he looked back every now and then tosee if his guest was comfortable.
"Is this too quick for you?" he asked once; and Mrs. Lancing only shookher head with a smile.
"It is too delightful," she answered.
The little town where they had been lunching lay far, far away in thedistance now, its ugliness softened by the mingling of sun and haze,and the country through which they were passing was very open; in adegree bleak. On one hand marshland and rough common ground, and on theother the beach inland, then stretches of wet sand, and then therestless, murmuring sea, bearing on its shimmering surface the coldembrace of the setting November sun.
Mrs. Lancing sighed involuntarily as she looked dreamily away to wherethe sky and sea seemed to meet, but her sigh was an unconscious tributeto the graciousness of the circumstances in which she found herself.
The smooth swinging movement of the car fascinated her. As she now andthen closed her eyes, she felt as if she were being carried away fromall that constituted life to her at other times; from excitement andpleasure and anxiety, from sordid and obtrusive care; even from thefever of hope and the illusive charm of chance. It was a delightfulsensation.
Sometimes as the road curved the car seemed almost to approach thewater, and the white-crested waves broke within a few yards of it witha boom; the rushing of the incoming and receding water making a musicalaccompaniment to the humming sound of the motor. Then they passed fromthe coastline, and the road began to wind upwards. The sea was shutfrom view by a wall of chalky hillocks covered with stubbly grass, andonly the countr