about Californian hops, about Los Angeles, where he had been.
He fencing for a topic with which he might gain my affection.

And then, quite suddenly, in the bright light of the street, I saw
Florence running. It was like that--I saw Florence running with a
face whiter than paper and her hand on the black stuff over her
heart. I tell you, my own heart stood still; I tell you I could not
move. She rushed in at the swing doors. She looked round that
place of rush chairs, cane tables and newspapers. She saw me and
opened her lips. She saw the man who was talking to me. She
stuck her hands over her face as if she wished to push her eyes
out. And she was not there any more.

I could not move; I could not stir a finger. And then that man said:

"By Jove: Florry Hurlbird." He turned upon me with an oily and
uneasy sound meant for a laugh. He was really going to ingratiate
himself with me. "Do you know who that is?" he asked. "The last
time I saw that girl she was coming out of the bedroom of a young
man called Jimmy at five o'clock in the morning. In my house at
Ledbury. You saw her recognize me." He was standing on his feet,
looking down at me. I don't know what I looked like. At any rate,
he gave a sort of gurgle and then stuttered:

"Oh, I say. . . ." Those were the last words I ever heard of Mr
Bagshawe's. A long time afterwards I pulled myself out of the
lounge and went up to Florence's room. She had not locked the
door--for the first time of our married life. She was lying, quite
respectably arranged, unlike Mrs Maidan, on her bed. She had a
little phial that rightly should have contained nitrate of amyl, in