from the telephone and went out to his waiting car
impatiently.

Arriving at Cherry Orchard, the elderly manservant relieved him of his
coat with a deferential smile.

"I think I'm a little late, Hagyard." Anstice glanced at the grandfather
clock in the corner. "Or perhaps your clock's a bit forward."

"I daresay it is, sir." Hagyard accepted the suggestion with
well-trained alacrity. "Miss Wayne has only been here a moment or two."

He threw open the door as he spoke and Anstice entered the drawing-room
with a sudden unwelcome return of his premonition strong upon him.

Yet the room, with its shaded lamps, small wood-fire, and latticed
windows open to the sweet spring twilight, looked peaceful enough. As
usual there were masses of flowers about, tulips, narcissi, anemones;
and the atmosphere was fragrant as Anstice went forward to greet his
hostess, who stood by one of the casements with her guests beside her.

She came towards him with her usual slow step, which never, for all its
deliberation, suggested the languor of ill-health; and as he began to
apologize for his late arrival she smiled away his apologies.

"You're not really late, Dr. Anstice, and in any case we should have
given you a few minutes' grace."

She stood aside for him to greet Iris, and as he shook hands with the
girl Anstice's heart gave a sudden throb of pleasure, which, for the
moment, almost succeeded in banishing that uncanny premonition of evil
which had come with him to the very gates of Cherry Orchard.

She was very simply dressed in a frock of filmy grey-green chiffon whose
colour reminded him of the spiky leaves of a carnation; but he had never
seen her look prettier than on that mild spring night; and his eyes
unconsciously softened as they dwelt upon her face for one fleeting
moment.

Then as Chloe's soft, deep voice, introducing her brother, stole on his
ear, he turned to greet the other man; and instantly he realized, too
late, the meaning of that presentiment of ill which had haunted him all
day; understood why the inner, spiritual part of him had bidden him
refuse Chloe Carstairs' invitation to Cherry Orchard that night.

For the man who turned leisurely from the window to greet the new-comer
was the man whom he had last seen in a green-walled bedroom in an Indian
hotel, the man whom, by a tragic error, he had robbed of the woman he
loved, from whom he had parted with a mutual hope that their paths in
life might never cro