if possible, the materialization process to such a point that
the figure could be handled, and could speak. And it seemed to Laurie
as if this would be final indeed....

* * * * *

So he sat this evening, within forty-eight hours of the crisis,
thinking steadily. Half a dozen times, perhaps, the thought of Maggie
recurred to him; but he was learning how to get rid of that.

Then he took up the note and opened it. It was filled with four pages
of writing. He turned to the end and read the signature. Then he
turned back and read the whole letter.

* * * * *

It was very quiet as he sat there thinking over what he had read. The
noise of Fleet Street came up here only as the soothing murmur of the
sea upon a beach; and he himself sat motionless, the firelight falling
upwards upon his young face, his eyes, and his curly hair. About him
stood his familiar furniture, the grand piano a pool of glimmering
dark wood in the background, the tall curtained windows suggestive of
shelter and warmth and protection.

Yet, if he had but known it, he was making an enormous choice. The
letter was from the man he had met at midday, and he was deciding how
to answer it. He was soothed and quieted by his loneliness, and his
irritation had disappeared: he regarded the letter from a youthfully
philosophical standpoint, pleased with his moderation, as the work of
a fanatic; he was considering only whether he would yield, for
politeness' sake, to the importunity, or answer shortly and
decisively. It seemed to him remarkable that a mature and experienced
man could write such a letter.

At last he got up, went to his writing-table, and sat down. Still he
hesitated for a minute; then he dipped his pen and wrote.

When he had finished and directed it, he went back to the fire. He had
an hour yet in which to think and think before he need dress. He had
promised to dine with Mrs. Stapleton at half-past seven. He had a
touch of headache, and perhaps might sleep it off.

_Chapter XII_

I

Lady Laura crossed the road by Knightsbridge Barracks and turned again
homewards through the Park.

It was one of those days that occasionally fall in late February which
almost cheer the beholder into a belief that spring has really begun.
Overhead the sky was a clear pale blue, flecked with summer-looking
clouds, gauzy and white; beneath, the whole earth was waking drowsily
from a fr