"Don't send us away," said Camilla, when coffee was brought in; "please smoke, all of you. Agnes doesn't mind--do you, Agnes? and I love it." As the liqueurs were being handed to him, Haverford's man addressed him confidentially. "Could I speak to you, sir?" he asked. Mr. Haverford looked upwards; the request was unusual; then he just nodded his head. "All right, I'll come to you in a minute." He waited a little while, and then, when the conversation was general, and there was a movement from the dining-room, with a murmured excuse to his two women guests, he left them. Harper was waiting for him. "What is the matter, Harper?" he asked impatiently enough. "I'm sorry to bring you away, sir," said the man, "but there's a young person that wants to see you, sir. I told her that you'd friends to dinner, but she wouldn't be sent away. Says she must see you. She came quite a hour ago. I put her in your study. She's come from Mrs. Baynhurst, I think, sir," the man added. "I asked her to tell me what she wanted, but she wouldn't do it. Insisted that she must speak to you yourself, sir." Rupert Haverford gave a few orders to the man about having certain rooms lit up for Mrs. Brenton to see, and then went along the broad passage to the room where he usually sat and smoked and worked. The girl who awaited him was standing by the fire. She turned as the door opened. He had seen her once before, and recognized her as his mother's secretary. Naturally his thoughts flew at once to his mother. "Is anything wrong?" he asked. "Have you news from Paris? Do you want me?" Caroline Graniger looked at him steadily. She was a tall slip of a girl, with a thin, colourless face, and very large, impressive eyes. Her dress was shabby and meagre; she looked, indeed, as if she had scarcely enough on for such a cold, raw night. "I don't know whether I ought to have come to you, Mr. Haverford," she said, "but I'm in great trouble, and as I've no one to whom I can go, and I don't quite know what to do, I thought of you." She spoke in a staccato kind of way. The voice was rather disagreeable to Haverford. "I shall be very glad to help you if I can," he said coldly; and then he waited for her to say more. "Mrs. Baynhurst has sent me away," the girl said; she spoke still in that same sharp, stiff way. "A letter came from Paris this morning by a midday post, but as I have been out all day I did not get it till late this afternoon. I have brought it with me so that you can read it." Mr. Haverford looked annoyed. He objected strongly to interfere in anything which concerned his mother. "I am afraid it is not possible for me to go into this matter with you," he said. "I have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Baynhurst's affairs." The girl answered him sharply, authoritatively. "Some one _must_ listen to me, and as you are her son, I consider it your duty to do so." At this he wheeled round.