"We shall sail from New York by the next White Star liner," I observed presently; and I thought within myself: "Roderick will be sailing by the Cunarder. It will be a race which shall reach Liverpool first."
By an odd coincidence, as I thought thus, Winifred was turning round upon her finger the ring which Roderick had sent her.
"I should like to have seen him," she said, pointing to the ring, "and thanked him for this. I suppose I shall never see him again. I have a strange fancy that I saw him long ago, and that he is—" she hesitated—"that he is the dark gentleman who was angry with the lady in yellow," she concluded, slowly.
"Dreaming again, Winifred!" I said.
"This is not dreaming," she corrected; "for sometimes I am almost sure it is true, and that he is the same one—only I have never seen him angry."
"Perhaps the dark gentleman was not so very angry even then," I suggested, to divert her thoughts from Roderick.
"Perhaps not," she said reflectively; "but I think he was."
"Your father—for the gentleman you speak of was, I suppose, your father—was devotedly attached to your mother."
"Was he?" inquired Winifred, simply.