ome to dinner this
evening at half-past seven to meet him. I have invited Miss Wayne,
so please complete our quartette if you can."

"Sincerely,"

"CHLOE CARSTAIRS."

For some moments Anstice sat inwardly debating the question, the note in
his hand.

He had no engagement for the evening. The people of Littlefield,
puzzled, perhaps a little piqued, by the aloofness of his manner, rarely
invited him to their houses in anything but his professional capacity,
though they called upon his services in and out of season; and Sir
Richard Wayne and Mr. Carey, the gentle, courtly Vicar of the parish,
were the only two men with whom he ever enjoyed an hour's quiet chat
over a soothing pipe or cigar.

So that there was no reason why he should hesitate to accept Chloe
Carstairs' invitation for that particular evening, yet hesitate he did,
unaccountably; and when, after fifteen minutes indecision, he suddenly
scribbled and dispatched an acceptance, the messenger had barely gone
from his presence before he felt an unreasoning impulse to recall the
letter.

What lay at the bottom of his strange reluctance to enjoy Chloe's
hospitality he had not the faintest notion. He had no special aversion
to meeting her brother, nor was he in any way reluctant to improve his
acquaintance with Iris Wayne.... Did his heart, indeed, beat just a
shade faster at the thought of meeting her? Yet something seemed to
whisper that this invitation was disastrous, that it would set in train
events which might be overwhelming in their sequence.

He tried, vainly, to banish the faint premonition of evil which had
fallen upon him when he realized it was too late to recall his
acceptance. Throughout the day it persisted, and when at length he went
to his room to dress for the evening, he felt a strong inclination to
excuse himself over the telephone on the plea of an urgent call to whose
importance he could not turn a deaf ear.

Such an excuse would, he knew, pass muster well enough. A doctor can
rarely be depended upon, socially, and when he was dressed he went
downstairs with the intention of ringing up Cherry Orchard and
regretting his inability to make a fourth at Mrs. Carstairs'
dinner-table that night.

Yet at the last moment Fate, or that other Higher Power of which we know
too little to speak with any familiarity, intervened to restrain his
impulse, and with a muttered imprecation at his own unusual vacillation
he turned away