out a pencil and
card-case, slowly scribbling a few words.

My hope was that if Karine was really in the drawing-room she would come
forth, and the Gordian knot of the dilemma would be cut.

But having mentioned my imminent departure from England on private and
urgent business, and added that, though I had been anxious to see Lady
Tressidy and Miss Cunningham for the sake of bidding good-bye, it would
be, more strictly speaking, only _au revoir_, as I intended
returning within the next four weeks, I could think of nothing more to
say. And still the drawing-room door, near which I was standing, was not
opened.

I should have been glad to underscore the last six words, but did not
venture to do so for obvious reasons, and could only hope that Karine
might see them or hear them read, and partly understand.

I conspicuously placed a sovereign on the card as I gave it to the
footman, remarking quietly that I would wish the latter to be delivered
in the presence of both ladies if possible. Then I seemed to have come
to the end of my resources, until a desperate idea seized me.

Had I not been virtually certain that Karine was to be kept from seeing
me, without her own consent to such an arrangement, naturally I would
have accepted my _conge_ with a good grace, and gone away, a wiser
as well as a sadder man; but as it was, and considering the importance
for her future as well as my own, of a hasty explanation between us, I
was ready to snatch at almost any expedient, not prejudicial to her, of
obtaining a word with Karine Cunningham.

I turned from the door and got into the cab, which the footman politely
opened for me as if only too glad to speed the parting guest. The
direction, "to the station," was given, the gravel crunched under the
wheels and horse's hoofs, the door at which I had been received so
inhospitably shut me out of paradise, and no doubt the servant
triumphantly watched me drive off. Half-way down the avenue, however, I
thrust my stick from the window of the rattle-trap vehicle and stopped
the coachman.

"I have forgotten something," I curtly said. "You needn't go back; wait
here, and I'll return again in a few moments."

The fly was standing just out of sight from the house, and rapidly
leaving it behind me I strode over the frozen grass of the lawn, taking
a shorter cut than the avenue would have been.

In considerably less than five minutes I had once more arrived in front
of the window through w