the wheels grew fainter in the distance—the cab melted into the black shadows on the road— the woman in white was gone.
Ten minutes or more had passed. I was still on the same side of the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now stopping again absently. At one moment I found myself doubting the reality of my own adventure; at another I was perplexed and distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right. I hardly
considered a complete Englishman by making a series of speeches in rapid succession, proposing my mother’s health, my sister’s health, my health, and the healths, in mass, of Mr. Fairlie and the two young Misses, pathetically returning thanks himself, immediately afterwards, for the whole party. “A