This kind of tone was a new experience to him in these latter days, when every one who approached him had a soft word on their lips, and a subservient suggestion in their manner. "I think you have made a mistake," he said, thoroughly annoyed now; "if my mother has seen fit to dispense with your services she has, no doubt, the very best reason for doing so. You must apply to her. As I have just said, this is a matter in which I could not possibly interfere at any time. And now----" "And now," said Caroline Graniger, with a short laugh, "you want to go back to your guests; to your dinner!" She shrugged her shoulders. "Then go. I was a fool to come." She left the fireplace and walked past him to the door, but before she could get there Rupert Haverford made a move forward. "Wait," he said. He had suddenly caught a glimpse of her face; it wore an expression that was eloquent enough to him. She paused, and stood biting her lip and blinking her eyes to keep back her agitation. Young as she was, she suggested an element of strength. "I have not very much time at my disposal," said Rupert quickly, "but tell me exactly what has happened. If I can help you I will." She did not answer him immediately. When she did, that sharp, almost pert, tone had gone from her voice. "I know quite well I have not given Mrs. Baynhurst satisfaction," she said, "though I have tried my very best to fall in with her ways. But she is not very easy. She does not make allowances. If it were only that I should not complain...." She bit her lip again, "if I am not good enough for her as a secretary she is quite right to get some one else; but she ought to have prepared me, not dismiss me in this way. I did not go to her of my own accord. She took me away from the school where I have been living for so many years. I was given to understand that she was my guardian, but I suppose that cannot be true, or she would not write to me as she has written now," she broke off abruptly. "What are my mother's orders?" asked Haverford very quietly. "She says I am to go away at once, as she has no further use for me. In her letter she writes that as she intends to remain in Paris for some time, the house in Kensington is to be shut up immediately. In fact"--the girl gave a shrug of her thin shoulders--"this is already done. I find that some one has been good enough to pack my few things in a box, and the only maid who remains informed me that she, too, had heard from Mrs. Baynhurst, and that by her mistress's orders I was to leave at once...." She looked at Rupert very steadily, and there was something of contempt in the expression of her dark eyes.