One was a likeness of herself, and Routh made the usual remarks about the insufficiency of the photographic art in certain cases. He was bending closely over her hand, when she reversed the revolving plate, and showed him the portrait on the other side.
"That is Arthur Felton," she said.
Then she closed the locket, and let it drop down by her side amid the satin and the lace.
The French groom had in his charge a soft India shawl in readiness for his mistress, in case of need. This shawl Stewart Routh took from the servant, and wrapped very carefully round Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge as they neared the town.
"The evening has turned very cold," he said; and, indeed, though she did not seem to feel it, and rather laughed at his solicitude, Routh shivered more than once before she set him down, near the Kursaal, and then drove homewards, past the house where his wife was watching for her, and waiting for him.
Routh ordered his dinner at the Kursaal, but, though he sat for a long time at the table, he ate nothing which was served to him. But he drank a great deal of wine, and he went home, to Harriet--drunk.
"How horribly provoking! It must have come undone while I was handling it to-day," said Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge to her maid, when that domestic was attiring her for dinner. "I had the locket, open, not an hour ago."
"Yes, ma'am," answered the maid, examining the short gold chain; "it is not broken, the swivel is open."
"And of all my lockets, I liked my golden egg best," lamented Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge.