E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 18470-h.htm or 18470-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h/18470-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/4/7/18470/18470-h.zip) THE SECOND LATCHKEY by C. N. & A. M. WILLIAMSON Frontispiece by Rudolph Tandler Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1920 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. A White Rose II. Smiths and Smiths III. Why She Came IV. The Great Moment V. The Second Latchkey VI. The Beginning--or the End? VII. The Countess de Santiago VIII. The Blue Diamond Ring IX. The Thing Knight Wanted X. Beginning of the Series XI. Annesley Remembers XII. The Crystal XIII. The Series Goes On XIV. The Test XV. Nelson Smith at Home XVI. Why Ruthven Smith Went XVII. Ruthven Smith's Eyeglasses XVIII. The Star Sapphire XIX. The Secret XX. The Plan XXI. The Devil's Rosary XXII. Destiny and the Waldos XXIII. The Thin Wall XXIV. The Anniversary XXV. The Allegory XXVI. The Three Words THE SECOND LATCHKEY CHAPTER I A WHITE ROSE Even when Annesley Grayle turned out of the Strand toward the Savoy she was uncertain whether she would have courage to walk into the hotel. With each step the thing, the dreadful thing, that she had come to do, loomed blacker. It was monstrous, impossible, like opening the door of the lions' cage at the Zoo and stepping inside. There was time still to change her mind. She had only to turn now ... jump into an omnibus ... jump out again at the familiar corner, and everything would be as it had been. Life for the next five, ten, maybe twenty years, would be what the last five had been. At the thought of the Savoy and the adventure waiting there, the girl's skin had tingled and grown hot, as if a wind laden with grains of heated sand had blown over her. But at the thought of turning back, of going "home"--oh, misused word!--a leaden coldness shut her spirit into a tomb. She had walked fast, after descending at Bedford Street from a fierce motor-bus with a party of comfortable people, bound for the Adelphi Theatre. Never before had she been in a motor-omnibus, and she was not sure whether the great hurtling thing would deign to stop, except at trysting-places of its own; so it had seemed wise to bundle out rather than risk a snub from the conductor, who looked like pictures of the Duke of Wellington.