"My Lord," clamoured Captain Spicer at the door, "the coach is waiting and we have but half an hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the meeting?"

Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words, the impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain with sudden conviction.

"Heavens!" cried he, and glanced at the clock, and made a leap for the door.

"And will you go," said the stranger, "without having seen my face?"

He ran back to her and then back to the door again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog between two calls. Finally he came back to the lady with a new and manly dignity upon him.

"I must go," he said. "Would you show yourself as kind as you seem, madam, remove your mask that I may see you before I go."

Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the air with shrill strange oaths.

Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy very composedly on one side by the merest touch of her hand, then she went over to the door, unlocked it and admitted Captain Spicer, green and sweating.

"I am coming, Spicer," cried Lord Verney desperately, and made a plunge for his hat and cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: "Oh cruel!"

Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and looked at the clock.

"It will not take you, you know," said she, "more than five minutes to drive down to the Bathwick ferry, therefore if you start in three you will still have twenty-six to spare. My Lord Verney, will you give me those three minutes?"

Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, his face glowing with a dark flush.

"Oh," cried he, like a school-boy, "for God\'s sake, Spicer, wait outside."

"Nay," said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself under her mask, "nay, I have need of Captain Spicer."

Lord Verney\'s face fell,

"Come hither," said she, and took him crestfallen by the hand and brought him to the table, where lay the writing materials he had been using but a little while ago. "Here," said she, "is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and write, write," she said, and tapped his shoulder; "write, sir—thus:—


\'Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Joseph Standish that he understands the grounds of the quarrel between them to lie in a gross misconception of Lord Verney\'s feelings for Lady Standish.\'


"Write, write!" She leaned over him, dictating.

Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently, he began to cover the page with his awkward scrawl.

"Quick," said she. "(Child, how do you spell quarrel?) Never mind, on with you:—


\'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever loved and ever will love.\'"


The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney\'s fingers. He started and turned round on his chair to graze in amaze into the countenance of his mysterious visitor, and again was at once attracted and foiled by her mask.

"Surely you would not contradict a lady?" she whispered in his ear; "haste, we have but one minute more. Here, give me the pen, I will finish." She snapped the quill from his hand, her curls touched his cheek as she bent forward over him to the page. Swiftly her little hand flew:—


"If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as arranged without an instant\'s delay. The truth of all these statements is guaranteed by the woman Lord Verney loves."


She seized the sheet and folded it.

"Now, Captain Spicer," said she, "take your coach and hie you to Sir Jasper\'s house, and if you bring back an answer before the clock strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that will save you from dying of curiosity and, also, give you something to tattle about for the next month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper," she said; "he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty minutes before the time."

Within his meagre body Captain Spicer carried the soul of a flunkey. He would have given worlds to rebel, but could not.

"So long as it is not a put-off," said he. "Not even for a fair one\'s smile could I barter a friend\'s honour."

Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and looked at the clock.

"If you won\'t be the bearer," said she, "I will s............