What Was Expected of Miss Constantine

Now I come to my share in this history. I confess that I approach it with doubt and trembling; but it has to be told here. It will never be told anywhere else -- certainly not at the Lexingtons', nor above all, for my peace' sake, to my sister Jane.

The following day was a Sunday, and, according to a not infrequent practice of mine, I took a walk in Hyde Park in the morning -- in the early hours before the crowd turned out. The place was almost deserted, for the weather was raw and chilly; but there, by some supernatural interposition as I am convinced, whether benign or malignant only the passage of years can show, in a chair at the corner of the Row sat Oliver Kirby. I stopped before him and said "Hallo!"