“Show Captain Fyffe out,” said her ladyship. And so, a definite end being put to the interview, I left the house as wrathful and as humiliated a man as any to be found that hour in London. So long as I live I shall not forget the smug alacrity with which the servant obeyed the behest of his mistress. I was in a state to wreak my own ill-humor upon anybody, and it was in my mind, and more than half in my heart, to kick that smug man in livery down the steps. I have suffered all my life from a certain Scotch vivacity of temperament which it has cost me many and many a hard struggle to control. It has not often been more unreasonable or more vigorous in its internal demonstrations than it was then, but I managed to reach the street and to walk away without exposing myself. As to where I went for the next few hours I never had the remotest idea. I must have walked a good many miles, for at last, when I pulled up, I found myself, at five o'clock in the evening, in a part of the town to which I was a complete stranger, and I had a confused remembrance of Oxford Street and the parks, and then of Highgate Archway. I made out, after a while, that I was at the East End, and, turning westward, I tramped back to my own lodgings with a return to self-possession which was partly due to the fact that bodily fatigue had dulled the sting of resentment. Hinge had dinner ready when I reached home, but I had no appetite for it, and, to the good fellow's dismay, I sent it away untasted. I turned over a thousand schemes that evening, and rejected each in turn. But I decided, finally, to prepare an advertisement for the newspapers, Which might perhaps prevent further mischief. I concocted so many subterfuges, each of which in turn proved to reveal too much or to be too enigmatical, that at ten o'clock I found myself with a dozen sheets of closely-written paper before me. But at last I hit on this: “Dear Violet,--Distrust altogether anything you may hear to my disadvantage until I have found an opportunity to explain. Do not wonder at not hearing from me. Both your letters and mine are intercepted. When you next write, post letter with your own hand.” After much consideration, I hit upon “John of Itzia” as a signature, and having made three clear copies, I drove round to the offices of the three great daily newspapers of that date, and at each secured the insertion of this advertisement for a week. A little comforted by that achievement, I went to bed, and, being dog tired, got to sleep. The days that followed were among the dreariest I can remember. I spent them for the most part at home, sitting at the open window which looked upon the street, and waiting for the advent of the postman.