CHAPTER X.
THE LAST WORD "Is that you ?" It was an hour or so later, but still I sat ruminating upon the parapet, within a yard or two of the spot where I had first accosted Bob Evers and Mrs.Lascelles.I had retraced the little sequence of subsequent events, paltry enough in themselves, yet of a certain symmetry and some importance as a whole.

I had attacked and defended my own conduct down to that hour, when I ought to have been formulating its logical conclusion, and during my unprofitable deliberations the night had aged and altered (as it were) behind my back.

There was no more music in the drawing-room.

There were no more people under the drawing-room windows.
The lights in all the lower windows were not what they had been; it was the bedroom tiers that were illuminated now.

But I did not realise that there was less light outside until I awoke to the fact that Mrs.
Lascelles was peering tentatively toward me, and putting her question in such an uncertain tone.
"That depends who I am supposed to be," I answered, laughing as I rose to put my personality beyond doubt.
"How stupid of me!" laughed Mrs.Lascelles in her turn, though rather nervously to my fancy.