the second communication.
She glanced at it, askance. Then she took it with a little gasp.

"Hereward, if you don't mind, I think I'll take a chair." She took a
chair. "Whatever--whatever's this?" As she read the letter the varying
expressions which passed across her face were, in themselves, a study in
psychology. "Is it possible that you can imagine that, under any
conceivable circumstances, I could have written such a letter as this?"

"Mabel!"

She rose to her feet with emphasis.

"Hereward, don't say that you thought this came from me!"

"Not from you?" He remembered Knowles's diplomatic reception of the
epistle on its first appearance. "I suppose that you will say next that
this is not a lock of your hair?"

"My dear child, what bee have you got in your bonnet? This a lock of my
hair! Why, it's not in the least bit like my hair!"

Which was certainly inaccurate. As far as color was concerned it was an
almost perfect match. The duke turned to Mr. Dacre.

"Ivor, I've had to go through a good deal this afternoon. If I have to go
through much more, something will crack!" He touched his forehead. "I
think it's my turn to take a chair." Not the one which the duchess had
vacated, but one which faced it. He stretched out his legs in front of
him; he thrust his hands into his trousers pockets; he said, in a tone
which was not gloomy but absolutely grewsome:

"Might I ask, Mabel, if you have been kidnaped?"

"Kidnaped?"

"The word I used was 'kidnaped.' But I will spell it if you like. Or I
will get a dictionary, that you may see its meaning."

The duchess looked as if she was beginning to be not quite sure if she was
awake or sleeping. She turned to Ivor.

"Mr. Dacre, has the accident affected Hereward's brain?"

The duke took the words out of his cousin's mouth.

"On that point, my dear, let me ease your mind. I don't know if you are
under the impression that I should be the same shape after a Pickford's
van had run over me as I was before; but, in any case, I have not been run
over by a Pickford's van. So far as I am concerned there has been no
accident. Dismiss that delusion from your mind."

"Oh!"

"You appear surprised. One might even think that you were sorry. But may I
now ask what you did when you arrived at Draper's Buildings?"

"Did! I looked for you!"

"Indeed! And when you had looked in vain, what was the next item in your
programme?"

The lady shrank still farther from him.

"Herewa