afternoon. Says he must live till Carlos gets
back; not to triumph over him, but to do what he can to lessen his
disappointment. My good Clement!

So nervous, I went to pasting photographs, and was forgetting all my
troubles when Hetty brought in another dress to try on.

Quiet in the great house, during which the clock on the staircase sent
forth seven musical peals. To Violet waiting alone in the library, they
acted as a summons. She was just leaving the room, when the sound
of hubbub in the hall below held her motionless in the doorway. An
automobile had stopped in front, and several persons were entering the
house, in a gay and unseemly fashion. As she stood listening, uncertain
of her duty, she perceived the frenzied figure of Mrs. Quintard
approaching. As she passed by, she dropped one word: "Carlos!" Then she
went staggering on, to disappear a moment later down the stairway.

This vision lost, another came. This time it was that of Clements's
wife leaning from the marble balustrade above, the shadow of approaching
grief battling with the present terror in her perfect features. Then
she too withdrew from view and Violet, left for the moment alone in the
great hall, stepped back into the library and began to put on her hat.

The lights had been turned up in the grand salon and it was in this
scene of gorgeous colour that Mrs. Quintard came face to face with
Carlos Pelacios. Those who were witness to her entrance say that
she presented a noble appearance, as with the resolution of extreme
desperation she stood waiting for his first angry attack.

He, a short, thick-set, dark man, showing both in features and
expression the Spanish blood of his paternal ancestors, started to
address her in tones of violence, but changed his note, as he met her
eye, to one simply sardonic.

"You here!" he began. "I assure you, madame, that it is a pleasure which
is not without its inconveniences. Did you not receive my cablegram
requesting this house to be made ready for my occupancy?"

"I did."

"Then why do I find guests here? They do not usually precede the arrival
of their host."

"Clement is very ill--"

"So much the greater reason that he should have been removed--"

"You were not expected for two days yet. You cabled that you were coming
on the Mauretania."

"Yes, I cabled that. Elisabetta,"--this to his wife standing silently in
the background--"we will go to the Plaza for tonight. At three o'clock
tomorrow we