“I decline to state, except that Miss Clavering and I are to be married—perhaps in this house. Senator Clavering, you know, and I are at feud, and the coming revelations about him make it very likely that he won’t have a house here very long”—Baskerville had in mind Clavering’s divorce—“and our meetings, Miss Clavering’s and mine, are to take place under your roof, with yourself to play gooseberry. Even if you are due at the biggest dinner going at the house of the smartest of the smart and the newest of the new, you shall stay here, if we have to chain you up.” “Upon my word!” “And you are not to open your mouth to a living being about what I am telling you, until I give you permission. I know your idea of a secret, Sara Luttrell—it means something that is worth telling. But if you let one ray of light leak out, I shall never speak to you again, and shall tell your age all over Washington.” Mrs. Luttrell looked at Baskerville with admiring eyes. “That’s the way your uncle used to talk to me. No one else in the world ever did it, except you and him.” “Now, will you obey me?” “You are an impudent rogue. Yes, I will obey you.” “Then go to your desk this minute and write Miss Clavering a note offering the hospitality of your roof and your services as chaperon whenever she requires it; and mind you make it a very affectionate note.” Baskerville led Mrs. Luttrell to her desk, where she wrote her note. “Will this do?” she asked, and read to him:— “DEAR ANNE CLAVERING: My nephew, Richard Baskerville, tells me you and he are to be married, and as he is at feud with your father he can’t go to your house. Therefore you must come to mine. I need not say that my services as chaperon are at your disposal. I think you know that I am a sincere person, and when I tell you that I think Richard Baskerville would do well to marry you even if you hadn’t a rag to your back, you may be sure I think so. And you will do well to marry him. He is like another Richard who died long ago—the husband of my youth. “Affectionately yours, “SARA LUTTRELL.” “That will do,” replied Baskerville, and taking Mrs. Luttrell’s small, white hand in his he kissed it, kissed it so with the air and look and manner of the man dead fifty years and more that Mrs. Luttrell’s bright old eyes filled with sudden tears—she, the woman who was supposed to have been born and to have lived without a heart. _Chapter Fifteen_