"_Rue de St. Quintaine, Paris._ "DEAR MR. RUFF,--_It is a long time since we had the pleasure of a visit from you. It is the desire of Madame that you should join our circle here on Thursday evening next, at ten o'clock._--SOGRANGE." Violet was a little perplexed. She failed, somehow, to recognise the sinister note underlying those few sentences. "It sounds friendly enough," she remarked. "You are not obliged to go, of course." Peter Ruff smiled grimly. "Yes, it sounds all right," he admitted. "They won't expect you to take any notice of it, surely?" she continued. "When you bought this place, Peter, you gave them definitely to understand that you had retired into private life, that all these things were finished with you." "There are some things," Peter Ruff said slowly, "which are never finished." "But you resigned," she reminded him. "I remember your letter distinctly." "From the Double Four," he answered, "no resignation is recognised save death. I did what I could, and they accepted my explanations gracefully and without comment. Now that the time has come, however, when they need, or think they need, my help, you see they do not hesitate to claim it." "You will not go, Peter? You will not think of going?" she begged. He twisted the letter between his fingers and sat down to his breakfast. "No," he said, "I shall not go." * * * * * That morning Peter Ruff spent upon his farm, looking over his stock, examining some new machinery, and talking crops with his bailiff. In the afternoon he played his customary round of golf. It was the sort of day which, as a rule, he found completely satisfactory, yet, somehow or other, a certain sense of weariness crept in upon him towards its close. The agricultural details in which he was accustomed to take so much interest had fallen a little flat. He even found himself wondering, after one of his best drives, whether it was well for the mind of a man to be so utterly engrossed by the flight of that small white ball towards its destination. More than once lately, despite his half-angry rejection of them, certain memories, half-wistful, half-tantalising, from the world of which he now saw so little, had forced their way in upon his attention. This morning the lines of that brief note seemed to stand out before him all the time with a curious vividness. In a way he played the hypocrite to himself. He professed to have found that summons disturbing and unwelcome, yet his thoughts were continually occupied with it. He knew well that what would follow was inevitable, but he made no sign. Two days later he received another letter. This time it was couched in different terms. On a square card, at the top of which was stamped a small coronet, he read as follows: "_Madame de Maupassim at home, Saturday evening, May 2nd, at ten o'clock._" In small letters at the bottom left-hand corner were added the words: "_To meet friends._"