“DEAR MRS. RAMSAY,--I find it will be impossible for me to go over and see you, as we are leaving for Milan to-morrow. I should have liked to have had a long talk with you--you and I have few secrets from one another--but, as the Rector and Miss Morven are in your hotel, I could not have faced them again, and given Miss Morven the trouble of cutting me for a second time. You suspected me, I know, and I may tell you that it was Aurea Morven who kept me in Ottinge for six months; that, chiefly for her sake, I took on a detestable job in Town, and engaged to risk my neck with this crazy motorist; for every week that I was earning my bread and keeping my promise, was bringing me, I believed, nearer to _her_. To the best of my knowledge I have never given her any reason to think ill of me; on the contrary, I have striven tremendously hard to make myself more worthy of her, and the other day, when I met her accidentally, I thought it was a wonderful piece of good luck for me; instead of which, it was the blackest day I’ve ever known. She refused to remember or recognise me. I have only six months more to work off--sometimes I think I’ll chuck the whole thing and enlist; I would, only for my sister. What’s the good of trying? I’m afraid this is a beastly sort of letter, but....” Some words were scratched out, but read, very carefully, and held up to the light, they were faintly decipherable. “I sometimes feel as if I were going mad--I don’t care now if we have some bad accident. I only hope it will kill me.--Yours sincerely, “OWEN WYNYARD.” It was the Honourable Mrs. Ramsay, daughter of the late, and sister of the present, Viscount Ballingarry--and not Katie--who, that evening, entered Aurea’s bedroom immediately after a knock. She discovered her young victim in a charming white _negligé_ and a rose silk petticoat, engaged in brushing her magnificent hair. There was war in the visitor’s face as she seated herself, and, after a moment’s expressive silence, fired her first gun. “Aurea, I want you to tell me why you were so amazingly, so cruelly, rude to Owen, your aunts’ chauffeur?” Miss Aurea, after a glance at her friend, coolly replied-- “Why should _I_ be called upon to do the polite to my aunts’ _ci-devant_ employé?” “Aurea! This is not you--there must be some crooked turn in you, or there’s some other detestable girl in your body!” “It is Aurea Morven, I assure you,” and she drew herself together with a quick movement; “and I do not wish to hear anything of Owen, the chauffeur. _I_ know more about him than you suppose.” “You don’t know a quarter as much as I do!” retorted Mrs. Ramsay with decision, and her eyes gleamed. “I know that he was on a ranch in South America, that he was a waiter on the _Anaconda_----” “Oh yes, go on.”