This was a discouraging reception, to be sure, and boded small good for his important errand. Will knew well on a dinner night the single emotion of a British matron! Church, crown, and constitution might fall apart piecemeal before Maud Sartoris’s eyes, and she would take no notice of them. Still at least he must try, for Linnet’s sake he must try; and he began accordingly. In as brief words as he could find, he explained hastily to Maud the nature and gravity of the existing situation. Signora Casalmonte, that beautiful, graceful singer who had made the success of _Cophetua’s Adventure_—Signora Casalmonte (he never spoke of her as “Linnet” to Maud, of course,) had long suffered terribly at the hands of her husband, whose physical cruelty, not to mention other things, had driven her to-day to leave his house hurriedly, without hope of return again. Flying in haste from his violence, and not knowing where to look for aid in her trouble, she had taken refuge for the moment—Will eyed his sister close—it was an error of judgment—no more—at his rooms in St James’s. “You recollect,” he said apologetically, “we were very old friends; I had known her in the Tyrol, and had so much to do with her while she was singing in my opera.” Maud nodded assent, and went on unconcerned, with a quiet smile on her calm face, arranging the geranium and maiden-hair in a neat little spray at one side of her much frizzed locks, with the profoundest attention. “Well?” she said inquiringly at last, as Will, floundering on, paused for a moment and glanced at her. “So the lady with many names—Casalmonte, Hausberger, Linnet, Carlotta, and so forth—is this moment at your rooms, and I suppose is going to sup there. A queer proceeding, isn’t it? It’s no business of mine, of course, but I certainly must say I should have thought your own sister was the last person in the world even _you_ would dream of coming to tell about this nice little escapade of yours.” “Maud,” Will said, very seriously, “let’s be grave; this is no laughing matter.” Then, in brief words once more, he went on to explain the difficulty he felt as to Linnet’s arrangements for the immediate future. He said nothing about the divorce, of course; nothing about his love and devotion towards Linnet. Those chords could have struck no answering string in the British matron’s severely proper nature. He merely pointed out that Linnet was a friend in distress, whose good name he wished to save against unjust aspersions. Having left her husband she ought to go somewhere to a responsible married woman—“And I’ve come to ask you, Maud,” he concluded, “as an act of Christian charity to a sister in distress, will you take her in, for to-night at least, till I can see with greater clearness what to do with her in future?” Maud stared at him in blank horror. “My dear boy,” she cried, “are you mad? What a proposal to make to me! How on earth can you ever think I could possibly do it?”