Mrs. Romayne fell in with the plan proposed, after an instant’s demur, with smiling alacrity, and the “turn in the Park” that followed was a very gay one. Miss Pomeroy and Julian laughed and talked together--that is to say, Julian laughed and talked in the best of good spirits, and Miss Pomeroy put in just the correct words and pretty smiles which were wanted to keep his conversation in full swing. Mrs. Romayne and Mrs. Pomeroy, facing them, disposed of the difficulty in connection with the bazaar, after a good deal of irrelevant discussion, by saying very often, and in a great many words, that three more stalls must be got in somewhere; a decision which seemed to Mrs. Pomeroy to make everything perfectly right, although she had had it elaborately demonstrated to her that such a course was absolutely impossible. It was half-past one when Mrs. Romayne and Julian were put down at their own door, and the barouche drove off amid a chorus of light laughter and last words. The sunshine, the fresh air, the movement, or something less simple and less physical, seemed to have had a most exhilarating effect on Mrs. Romayne. Her face was almost as radiant in its curiously different fashion as Julian’s was radiant with the unreasoning good spirits of youth. “Such nice people!” she said lightly. “I wonder whether lunch is ready? I’m quite starving! Oh, letters!” taking up three or four which lay on the hall-table. “Let us trust they are interesting!” She turned into the dining-room as she spoke, sorting the envelopes in her hand. “One for you--your friend Von Mühler, isn’t it?” she said, tossing it to Julian carelessly. “One for me--an invitation obviously. One from Mrs. Ponsonby, about her stall, I suppose. And one from----” She stopped suddenly. The last letter of the pile was contained in a small square envelope, and addressed in what was obviously a man’s handwriting--a good handwriting, clear and strong, but somewhat cramped and precise. “Mrs. William Romayne, 22, Queen Anne Street, Chelsea.” A curious stillness seemed to come over the little alert figure as the pale blue eyes caught sight of the writing, and then Mrs. Romayne moved and walked slowly away to the window, still with her eyes fixed on the envelope. She paused a moment, and then she opened it and drew out a sheet of note-paper bearing a few lines only in the same small, clear hand. “Well, mother, and what have your correspondents got to say? I have had no end of a screed from Von Mühler.” Nearly ten minutes had passed, and Mrs. Romayne started violently. She thrust the letter--still open in her hand, though she was looking fixedly out of the window--back into its envelope and turned. Her face had altered curiously and completely. All its colour, all the genuine animation which had pervaded it as she came into the room, had disappeared; it was pale and hard-looking, and the lines about the mouth and eyes were very visible.