"We have only just heard of your illness, and are much concerned about it, more especially as you are alone at an hotel, and must be dependent on quite alien services. As soon as ever your health permits, will you come to us here, and let us try to nurse you back to health once more? As the weather is so unusually mild, I do not think you will find the air of Northumberland too bracing. Lauraine, of course, joins with me in this invitation. In fact, we can't hear of a refusal. I will meet you in London, and come down with you as soon as ever your physicians give you permission for the journey. With my kindest regards, and sympathy from all mutual friends here, "Believe me, very sincerely yours, "FRANCIS S. VAVASOUR." Keith reads the letter steadily through to the end, and his face grows white as the paper as he so reads it. But a new, stern look comes into his eyes, and his lips close tight under their thick moustache. "What does it mean?" he thinks, as he reads the subtle tempting. "Can Lauraine _really_ have had any hand in this? I don't believe it. No; I will not go. The snare is too plainly set." And before he can have time to alter his mind he asks for pen and ink, and dashes off a firm but courteous refusal on the plea of his physicians ordering him to a warm climate. "She shall never have to reproach me again if I can help it," he says to himself, as exhausted with even this small exertion, he sinks back on his pillows. "She called me selfish once. Will she do so now?--now, when for her sake----" There is only a very small house party at Falcon's Chase when Keith Athelstone's letter arrives, and the master of the house reads it with a clouded brow. He has insisted upon his wife's asking Lady Jean down, and, despite her recent bereavement, the Lady Jean accepts the invitation. She is very subdued, very mournful, lives a great deal in her own rooms, and altogether affords a very unobtrusive spectacle of chastened sorrow. She is more than ever gracious to her hostess, and dignified to her host, and even Lady Etwynde's observant eyes can see nothing in any way suspicious. On the morning that Keith's letter arrives Lady Jean is not at the breakfast-table and Sir Francis is impatient to tell her the news--so impatient in fact, that for once he forgets the prudence she has so strictly enjoined, and sends her a note by her maid asking her to come into the small study adjoining the library as soon as she can. Lady Jean is annoyed at his imprudence, and in no way hurries herself to suit his wishes. When she at last enters the study she finds Sir Francis fuming at being kept waiting, and decidedly unamiable. "Well, what is it?" she asks. He hands her Keith's letter, and she reads it through. Her brows cloud; she throws it aside impatiently. "The young fool!" she mutters.