If only I'd known that you would be so late, I might have explained everything to him." "I'm very sorry," said Ivor, so humbly and so sadly that I pitied him (but not half as much as I pitied myself, even though I hadn't forgotten that hint he had let drop about a great sacrifice--a girl he loved, whom he had thrown over, somehow, to come to me).

"I made every effort to be in time.

It seems a piece with the rest of my horrible luck to-day that I was prevented.

I hope, at least, that du Laurier knows about the necklace ?" "He does, by this," I answered.

"Yet I'm afraid he won't be in a mood to take much comfort from it--thanks to that wretch.