CHAPTER II.
Mr.Taynton lived in a square, comfortable house in Montpellier Road, and thus, when he left Mrs.Assheton's there was some two miles of pavement and sea front between him and home.

But the night was of wonderful beauty, a night of mid June, warm enough to make the most cautious secure of chill, and at the same time just made crisp with a little breeze that blew or rather whispered landward from over the full-tide of the sleeping sea.

High up in the heavens swung a glorious moon, which cast its path of white enchanted light over the ripples, and seemed to draw the heart even as it drew the eyes heavenward.

Mr.Taynton certainly, as he stepped out beneath the stars, with the sea lying below him, felt, in his delicate and sensitive nature, the charm of the hour, and being a good if not a brisk walker, he determined to go home on foot.

And he stepped westward very contentedly.
The evening, it would appear, had much pleased him--for it was long before his smile of retrospective pleasure faded from his pleasant mobile face.