The letter she addressed to The Hon. Craven Black, The Albany, London, W. She then touched her bell. To the servant who came at her summons she gave the letter, ordering it to be posted at Wyndham village without delay. When her messenger had gone, her ladyship gave a sigh of consent, and murmured: “I am about to reap the reward of all my schemes. Craven will be here to-morrow!” CHAPTER VI. HER LADYSHIP’S ACCOMPLICE. The morrow to which Lady Wynde looked forward with feverish expectation dawned at last, bright and clear, and deepened into a sultry afternoon. The baronet’s widow spent hours at her toilet, and the effect of her labors was satisfactory to her. She surveyed her reflection in a full-length mirror in her dressing-room with a smile of complacency. Her black hair was arranged in braids, curls, and finely crimpled waves, after the fashion of the day, and in the midst of its prodigal luxuriance, above her forehead, a jeweled spray flashed and glittered. Her dress, made low in the neck and short in the sleeves, to display her finely rounded shoulders and arms, was of lustrous silk of lavender hue, and was draped with a black lace overskirt. A necklace and bracelets incrusted with diamonds added brilliancy to her appearance. Her liquid black eyes shone and glittered; her cheeks were red as damask roses; she had never looked half so handsome in the days when she had fascinated Sir Harold Wynde and made him adore her. She had dismissed her maid, and was giving a last touch to the short curls that dropped over her forehead, while she talked with Artress, when wheels were heard coming up the drive. The gray companion flitted to a shuttered window and peeped out. A cab was approaching the house, and a man’s head was protruded from the window. His face was half averted, as he apparently studied the exterior of the dwelling, but Artress knew him. She glided back to Lady Wynde with the words: “He has come!” A sudden agitation seemed to convulse the soul of the baronet’s widow. A sudden paleness swept over her face. She leaned heavily upon the back of a chair, and stood there motionless until a servant brought up a silver tray on which lay a large square card with the inscription, “The Honorable Craven Black,” and announced that the gentleman had been shown into the drawing-room. Then her ladyship started abruptly, the color returning to her face in ruddy waves. “Come, Artress,” she said, “we will go below. Yet stay. You may delay your coming for half an hour. Surely no one can find fault with me for seeing him alone a little while. Since I became a widow for the second time, I have felt as if I lived in a glass lantern with the eyes of all Kent upon me. Yet there is no need of carrying my caution too far.” She gave a last glance at her reflection in the mirror, a last deft touch to her attire, and then swept from the room down the stairs, and slowly entered the drawing-room.