ar as I can remember. I am mistaken. It is only a fancy. No--I have
it! He suggests M. Felix Marchand--there is something in common in their
speech, though it is very slight. What an odd coincidence!"

That it could possibly be more than a coincidence did not occur to Jack,
and he would have laughed the idea to scorn. He dismissed the matter
from his mind, wrote and posted the letter, and then went off to dine by
appointment with Victor Nevill.

There was no word from Madge the next day, and it is to be feared that
Jack's work suffered in consequence, and that Alphonse found him
slightly irritable. But on the following morning a letter came in the
well-known handwriting. It was very brief. The girl was _not_ out of
town, but was stopping near Regent's Park with an elderly maternal aunt
who lived in Portland Terrace, and was addicted to the companionship of
cockatoos and cats, not to speak of a brace of overfed, half-blind pugs.

"I am in exile," the letter concluded, "and the dragon is a watchful
jailer. But she sleeps in the afternoon, and at three o'clock to-morrow
I will be inside the Charles street gate."

"To-morrow" meant to-day, and until lunch time Jack's brush flew
energetically over the canvas. He was at the trysting-place at the
appointed hour, and Madge was there waiting for him, so ravishingly
dressed that he could scarcely resist the temptation to gather her in
his arms. As they strolled through the park he rather gloomily described
his visit from Stephen Foster, but the girl's half-smiling, half-tearful
look of affection reassured him.

"You foolish boy!" she said, chidingly. "As if there were any danger of
your losing me. Why, I wouldn't give you up if you wanted me to! I think
you got the best of father, dear. He understands now, and by and by he
will relent. He is a good sort, really, and you will like him when you
know him better."

"We made a bad beginning," Jack said, ruefully.

They had reached the lake by this time, and they went on to a bench in
a shady and sequestered spot. Madge's high spirits seemed suddenly to
desert her, and she looked pensively across the glimmering water to the
tall mansions of Hanover Terrace.

"Madge, something troubles you," her lover said, anxiously.

"Yes, Jack. I--I received an anonymous letter at noon. Mrs. Sedgewick
forwarded it to me. Oh, it is shameful to speak of it--"

"An anonymous letter? There is nothing more vile or cowardly! Did it
concern me?"