How many hundred times he had walked past those trees from his father's house in Park Lane, when he was quite a young man; or from his own house in Montpellier Square in those four years of married life! And, to-night, making up his mind to free himself if he could of that long useless marriage tie, he took a fancy to walk on, in at Hyde Park Corner, out at Knightsbridge Gate, just as he used to when going home to Irene in the old days.

What could she be like now ?--how had she passed the years since he last saw her, twelve years in all, seven already since Uncle Jolyon left her that money?
Was she still beautiful?
Would he know her if he saw her?
'I've not changed much,' he thought; 'I expect she has.

She made me suffer.' He remembered suddenly one night, the first on which he went out to dinner alone--an old Malburian dinner--the first year of their marriage.

With what eagerness he had hurried back; and, entering softly as a cat, had heard her playing.

Opening the drawing-room door noiselessly, he had stood watching the expression on her face, different from any he knew, so much more open, so confiding, as though to her music she was giving a heart he had never seen.