an to gather up the open blotter that lay there with feverish
haste. A sheet of paper flew out from her nervous hands and fluttered
to the floor at Field's feet. He stooped and picked it up.

She uttered a gasp and turned as white as the dress she wore. "That is
mine!" she panted.

He gave it to her with grave courtesy. "I am afraid I am disturbing you,"
he said. "I can wait while you finish."

But she crumpled the paper in her hand. She was trembling so much that
she could hardly stand.

"It--doesn't matter," she said almost inaudibly.

He stood for a second or two in silence, then seated himself at the
writing-table and took up a pen.

In the stillness that followed she moved away to the fire and stood
before it. Field wrote steadily without turning his head. She stooped
after a moment and dropped the crumpled paper into the blaze. Then she
sat down, her hands tightly clasped about her knees, and waited.

Field's quiet voice broke the stillness at length. "If you are writing
letters of your own, perhaps I may leave this one in your charge."

She looked round with a start. He had turned in his chair. Their eyes met
across the room.

"May I?" he said.

She nodded, finding her voice with an effort. "Yes--of course."

He got up, and as he did so the great dinner-gong sounded through the
house. He came to her side. She rose quickly at his approach, moving
almost apprehensively.

"Shall we go down?" she said.

He put out a hand and linked it in her arm. She shrank at his touch, but
she endured it. She even, after a moment, seemed to be in a measure
steadied by it. She stood motionless for a few seconds, and during those
seconds his fingers closed upon her, very gentle, very firmly; then
opened and set her free.

"Will you lead the way?" he said.

CHAPTER VI

A very hilarious party gathered at the table that night. Burleigh
Wentworth was in uproarious spirits which seemed to infect nearly
everyone else.

In the midst of the running tide of joke and banter Violet sat as one
apart. Now and then she joined spasmodically in the general merriment,
but often she did not know what she laughed at. There was a great fear at
her heart, and it tormented her perpetually. That note that she had
crumpled and burnt! His eyes had rested upon it during the moment he had
held it in his hand. How much had they seen? And what was it that had
induced him in the first place to declare his intention of curtailing
the