He gave me this." Anna almost snatched the piece of paper from her maid's fingers.

She glanced at the name, and the disappointment which shone in her eyes was very apparent.

It was succeeded by an impulse of surprise.
"You can show him in," she directed.
Selingman appeared a few moments later--Selingman, cool, rosy, and confident, on the way to his beloved bridge club.

He took the hand which Anna, without moving, held out to him, and raised it gallantly to his lips.
"I thought it was understood, my crockery friend," she murmured, "that in London we did not interchange visits." "Most true, gracious lady," he admitted, "but there are circumstances which can alter the most immovable decisions.

At this moment we are confronted with one.