It was this ardor, as well as something else, that began in the end to make me uneasy. The something else was that Mrs. Brokenshire was writing letters on her own account. Coming in one day from a solitary walk, I found her posting one in the hall of the hotel. A few days later one for her was handed to me at the office, with several of my own. Recognizing Stacy Grainger's writing, I put it back with the words: "Mrs. Brokenshire will come for her letters herself." From that time onward she was often at her desk, and I knew when she got her replies by the feverishness of her manner. The truce of God being past, the battle was now on again. The first sign of it given to me was on a day when Mr. Brokenshire wrote in terms more definite than he had used hitherto. I read the letter aloud to her, as usual. He had been patient, he said, and considerate, which had to be admitted. Now he could deny himself no longer. As it was plain that his wife was better, he should come to her. He named the 20th as the day on which he should appear. "No, no," she cried, excitedly. "Not till after the twenty-third." "But why the twenty-third?" I asked, innocently. "Because I say so. You'll see." Then fearing, apparently, that she had betrayed something she ought to have concealed, she colored and added, lamely, "It will give me a little more time." I said nothing, but I pondered much. The 23d was no date at all that had anything to do with us. If it had significance it was in plans as to which she had not taken me into her confidence. So, too, when I heard her making inquiries of the maid who did the rooms as to the location of the Baptist church. "What on earth does she want to know that for?" was the question I not unnaturally asked myself. That she, who never went to church at all, except as an occasional act of high ceremonial for which she took great credit to her soul, was now concerned with the doctrine of baptism by immersion I did not believe. But I hunted up the sacred edifice myself, finding it to be situated on the edge of a daisied mead, slightly out of the town, on a road that might be described as lonely and remote. I came to the conclusion that if any one wanted to carry off in an automobile a lady picking flowers--a sort of _enlèvement de Proserpine_--this would be as good a place as any. How the Pluto of our drama could have come to select it, Heaven only knew. But I did as I was bid, and wrote to Mr. Brokenshire that once the 23d was passed he would be free to come. After that I watched, wondering whether or not I should have the heart or the nerve to frustrate love a second time, even if I got the chance. I didn't get the chance precisely, but on the 22nd of June I received a mysterious note. It was typewritten and had neither date nor address nor signature. Its message was simple: