The wind traveled the streets without, and shook the window-casings. She cowered over the library fire, listening. The leaping flames set her shadow dancing like a goblin. A bell rang, and the shadow and the flame gave a higher leap as if in welcome of what had arrived. She went to the library door. In the glooms and lights outside Shima was standing, and two messengers. It was odd that both should arrive at once. She stepped back and stood waiting with a quicker pulse. Shima entered with two letters upon his tray. She had a moment's anxiety lest both her notes had been brought back to her, but no--the envelope which lay on top showed Harry's writing. She tore it open hastily. Harry wrote that he would be delighted, and might he bring a friend with him; a bully fellow whom he wanted her to meet? He added she might send over for some girl and they could have a jolly little party. Flora looked at this communication blankly. Was Harry, who had always jumped at the chance of a tête-à-tête, dodging her? In her astonishment she let the other envelope fall. She stooped, and then for a moment remained thus, bent above it. The superscription was not hers. The note was not addressed to Harry, but to her, and in a handwriting she had never seen before! Again the peal of the electric bell. Shima appeared with a third envelope. This time it was her own note returned to her. With the feeling she was bewitched she took up the mysterious letter from the floor and opened it. She read the strange handwriting: May I see you, anywhere, at any time, to-night? ROBERT KERR. It was as if Kerr himself had entered the room, masked and muffled beyond recognition, and then, face to face with her, let fall his disguise. She gazed at the words, at the signature, thrilled and frightened. She looked at Harry's note, hesitated; caught a glimpse between the half-open doors of the two messengers waiting stolidly in the hall. Waiting for answers! Answers to such communications! She made a dash for the table where were pens and ink and on one sheet scrawled: "Certainly. Bring him," appending her initials; on the other the word "Impossible," and her full name. Then she hurried the letters into Shima's hands, lest her courage should fail her--lest she should regret her choice. "Anywhere, at any time, to-night," she repeated softly. Why, the man must be mad! Yet she permitted herself a moment of imagining what might have been if her answers had been reversed. But no, she dared not meet Kerr's impetuous attacks yet. First she must get at Harry. And how was that to be managed if he insisted on surrounding himself with "a jolly little party?"