Her state of tension was too great to allow her to stay in the same place for more than a few minutes. She got up, and went to the glass before the mantelpiece. Taking out the pins that held her large Gainsborough hat, she arranged her hair with her hands, putting the curls of the fringe in their right place, fastening up some stray ends. She had given orders, as we have seen, to admit no one, and was presumably going to bed. Nevertheless, her behaviour was instinctively the behaviour of one who expects a guest. When, more or less to her satisfaction, she had restored the symmetry of the little curled and crimped head, she took her face between her hands, and stared at her own reflection. Memories of the party she had just left, of the hot river, the slowly filling locks, the revelry, the champagne, danced in her mind, especially of a certain walk through a wood. She defiantly watched the face in the glass grow red, the eyelids quiver. Then, like the tremor from some volcanic fire far within, a shudder ran through her. She dropped her head on her hands. She hated--_hated_ him! Was it to-morrow evening she had told him he might come? She would go down to Ferth. Wheels in the quiet street! Letty flew to the window like an excited child, her green and white twinkling through the room. A brougham, and a tall figure in black stepping slowly out of it. Letty sheltered herself behind a curtain, held her breath, and listened. Presently her lower lip dropped a little. What was Kenrick about? The front door had closed, and Lady Maxwell had not re-entered her carriage. She opened the drawing-room door with care, and was stooping over the banisters when she saw Kenrick on the stairs. He seemed to be coming from the direction of George's study. "What have you been doing?" she asked him in a hard under-voice, looking at him angrily. "I told you not to let Lady Maxwell in." "I told her, my lady, that you were engaged and could see no one. Then her ladyship asked if she might write a few lines to you and send them up, asking when you would be able to see her. So I showed her into Sir George's study, my lady, and she is writing at Sir George's desk." "You should have done nothing of the sort," said Letty, sharply. "What is that letter?" She took it from his hand before the butler, somewhat bewildered by the responsibilities of his position, could explain that he had just found it in the letterbox, where it might have been lying some little time, as he had heard no knock. She let him go downstairs again, to await Lady Maxwell's exit, and herself ran back to read her letter, her heart beating, for the address of the sender was on the envelope. When she had finished she threw it down, half suffocating.