I cannot tell you the surprise and joy I felt when, on arriving at your house on Madison Avenue that evening, I discovered it to be our old habitat. It seemed as if your selection of that as your home, probably from sentiment, was a bow of promise for the future, and I rang the bell, almost trembling with emotion and happiness. The footman showed me to the drawing-room and took my card. All inside, so far as I could see, was changed past the point of recognition, but everything was beautiful, and I felt in that one room that no decorator’s conventional taste had formed its harmony, but that an artistic sense had planned the whole. What a contrast it was to the old days of untasteful and untidy richness! I sat but a moment before the footman returned. Looking not at me, but over my head, and with an attitude and air as deferential as if I were the guest of all others most welcome, he said, “Miss Walton declines the honor of Mr. Maitland’s acquaintance, and begs to be excused.” The blow came so suddenly, and was so crushing, that for a moment I lost my dignity. “There must be some mistake!” I exclaimed. “You gave Miss Walton my card?” The footman only bowed assent. “Go to Miss Walton and say I must see her a moment.” “Miss Walton instructed me to add, in case Mr. Maitland persisted, that she prefers to hold no intercourse with Mr. Maitland and will receive no messages from him.” Pride came to my rescue, and I passed silently into the hall. The servant opened the door, and I went out from my old home, never to enter it more. At the foot of the steps I turned and looked back, hardly yet believing what I had been told. Even in the sting and humiliation of that moment my love was stronger than the newer sensations. I said, “Good-night, Maizie. God keep you,” and walked away. VIII _February 27._ I sat for hours in my room, that night, trying to find some solution of the mystery and groping for a future course of action. I thought of a visit to my mother, on the chance that she would give me the key to the puzzle, but could not bring myself to it. Rejecting that idea, I decided to seek out Mr. Blodgett, who, being your friend, might know the reason for what you had done. Finding on inquiry, the next morning, that Mr. Blodgett was a member of one of the chief banking firms of New York, I went to his office. The ante-room was well filled with people anxious to see the great banker, and the door-boy refused me access to him without giving my name and business. Knowing that “Donald Maitland” would mean nothing to Mr. Blodgett, and might even fail to secure me an audience, I wrote on a slip of paper, “A seeker of knowledge from the Altai Mountains.” Nor was I wrong, for the boy, on his return, gave me immediate entrance, and another moment brought me face to face with my once-disliked countryman.