Lord Hetton sat and meditated by his study fire. "By Jove!" thought he, "it would serve her right if I really did pay her off and married. I ought to, if it were only to keep out that fellow Haggard and his brats." It was ten o'clock. Azalea Lodge was a well-regulated household. The parlourmaid placed the spirit stand upon the table, and asked his lordship if he had any further orders. Within half-an-hour the four women servants of Azalea Lodge were fast asleep, and the thick baize-covered door, which separated the servants' quarters from the rest of the house, was securely fastened. And now Lord Hetton sat down to his writing-table, and he wrote a letter to the solicitor of the mistress of Azalea Lodge. This was the letter, which was short and to the point: "Azalea Lodge. "SIR, "I shall be glad if you will call upon me here, as I am desirous of washing my hands of your client and of all the associations of this place. "Yours faithfully, "HETTON." Now Lord Hetton when he wrote this letter had not the slightest idea of carrying out the threat contained in it; it was merely his way of expressing his displeasure--the quickest means he knew of causing the return of the fugitive from the seaside. It was upon the lines of this letter that he composed a second epistle full of indignant recrimination, in which he announced that this, the last rupture, must be final. "I have long determined," he said, and he chuckled as he wrote the words, "to shake myself free from what was after all but a boyish infatuation at the commencement, an entanglement which I feel we both have been anxious to terminate for some time. Your solicitor will inform you that I have requested him to take the necessary steps." And as he folded the letter and placed it in its envelope he smiled. "She'll get it by the mid-day delivery to-morrow, if they post it the first thing in the morning, and she'll probably come back in a towering passion by the four express. I wish she was here now," he continued with a sigh. Lord Hetton yawned, he looked at his watch, and then he stamped the letters and laid them out for posting, but circumstances intervened which caused those two letters not to leave Azalea Lodge. Lord Hetton lighted his candle and went to bed. In half-an-hour he was sound asleep, and a dead silence reigned in Azalea Lodge. The crickets chirped merrily upon the hearth of the housemaid's pantry, where the remains of a fire still smouldered. But what is that monotonous grating sound which continues with mechanical regularity? It isn't a kettle boiling, though it sounds rather like it, for there is an occasional squeak and then the noise suddenly ceases altogether, only to recommence again.