He glanced at himself in the mirror. A lean and hardy young man, very dark, with the features characteristic of his family, a thin, keen nose, rather long upper lip, a saturnine and faintly mocking expression. They were a disagreeable family, bitterly obstinate, ambitious, energetic, and grimly unsociable. And he was like that, too; like his father and his grandfather and his uncles. Without being in the least humble, he still could not understand what Mrs. Barron had seen in him to make her consider him a suitable son-in-law. With Phyllis Barron it was different. He had sometimes imagined that her innocent and candid eyes had discerned in him qualities he had long ago tried to destroy. It was possible that she had found him a little likable. But _she_ wouldn’t pursue him. He was certain that she had not written this note, or wanted her mother to write it. When he had realized his danger, and had begun to spend his time talking to the doctor, instead of sitting beside her on deck, she had never tried to recall him. Whenever he did come, she always had that serious, friendly little smile for him; but she had tried to make it very plain that, where she was concerned, he was quite free to come or to go, to remember or to forget. Well, he meant to forget. His life was just beginning, and he did not intend to entangle himself in any way. He sighed, not knowing that he did so, and then, out of sheer idle curiosity, just to see how Mrs. Barron worked, he opened the note. “Dear Cousin James—” it began. But, as far as he knew, he hadn’t a cousin in the world. With a puzzled frown, he picked up the envelope; it was plainly addressed, in a clear, small hand, to “Mr. James Ross. On board the S. S. Farragut.” “Must be a mistake, though,” he muttered. “I’ll just see.” And he went on reading: You have never seen me, and I know you have heard all sorts of cruel and false things about me. But I beg you to forget all that now. I am in such terrible trouble, and I don’t know where to turn. I beg you to come here as soon as you get this. Ask for Mrs. Jones, the housekeeper. Say you have come from Cren’s Agency, about the job as chauffeur. She will tell you everything. You can’t refuse just to come and let me tell you about this terrible thing. Your desperately unhappy cousin, Amy Ross Solway. “Day’s End,” Wygatt Road, near Stamford. He sat, staring in amazement at this letter. “It’s a mistake!” he said, aloud. But, all the same, it filled him with a curious uneasiness. Of course, it was meant for some one else—and he wanted that other fellow to get it at once; he wanted to be rid of it in a hurry. He had nothing to do with any one’s Cousin Amy and her “terrible trouble.” He rang the bell for the steward, waited, rang again, more vigorously, again waited, but no one came.