It was Friday, and she could not leave town until Sunday, her only free day. As soon as she reached home, she collected some parts she had played on tour, lent her by Muriel, and copied in that lady’s handwriting. These Annie placed before her until she had mastered every detail of the slanting scrawl, and then she wrote the following note on a half sheet of paper, in an imitation of Miss West’s writing: “DEAR HARRY,--I will come down and see you on Sunday by the 2.30 train from Waterloo. Send somebody to meet me. “YOUR DARLING.” Annie had consulted a railway time-table and found a suitable train. She posted this letter, and on the following Sunday started for Kirby Park, in a fever at the audacity of her enterprise. She had had time, since sending off the note to her husband, to be the prey of regrets at her hasty action, to ask herself whether she was justified in giving him the shock she had prepared for him, whether it would not have been better, as it would certainly have been more dignified, to take no notice of the discovery she had made, save in a cold letter declining to hold any further communication with him, or challenging him to give some explanation of his conduct. She was beginning to fear too some outbreak of her husband’s passionate temper when he discovered the trick she had played upon him. Then conjecture as to what her husband was doing at Kirby Park--he had the name on his cards as if it belonged to him--and excitement at the thought that she was about at last to solve the mystery of his occupation added to the wild confusion in her mind. She had heard of Kirby Park, but she could not remember when or how, and the most extravagant guesses occurred to her as to the position she would find her husband occupying. And through all her passionate anger, her wish for revenge, her wonder, and her sorrow there was deep down in her heart a fierce eagerness to see him again, to hear his voice, to feel the touch of his hand, even if it were not held out in welcome. Part of her curiosity regarding her husband’s occupation was satisfied before she reached Kirby. Two gentlemen had got into the same carriage with her at Waterloo, and her attention was caught by the words “Kirby Park” in their talk; and, when her thoughts had wandered off again to the subjects which were absorbing her, she was suddenly recalled to the presence of her two companions by a reference to “young Braithwaite” by one of them. “You need not have the least apprehension on that score,” said the other. “He has a sort of genius for the management of horses, and has lived more in the stable than in the house ever since he was about two. I would trust him, on any matter connected with them, before any man I know, young or old.” “He is a gentleman by birth, isn’t he?” asked the younger man.