and she were crossing Grosvenor Square in the January dusk—­had struck for the second time upon her ear, she was already under Warkworth’s charm.  But before—­the first time?  She had come to Lady Henry firmly determined to marry as soon and as well as she could—­to throw off the slur on her life—­to regularize her name and place in the world.  And then the possible heir of the Chudleighs proposes to her—­and she rejects him!

It was sometimes difficult for her now to remember all the whys and wherefores of this strange action of which she was secretly so proud.  But the explanation was in truth not far from that she had given to the Duchess.  The wild strength in her own nature had divined and shrunk from a similar strength in Delafield’s.  Here, indeed, one came upon the fact which forever differentiated her from the adventuress, had Sir Wilfrid known.  She wanted money and name; there were days when she hungered for them.  But she would not give too reckless a price for them.  She was a personality, a soul—­not a vulgar woman—­not merely callous or greedy.  She dreaded to be miserable; she had a thirst for happiness, and the heart was, after all, stronger than the head.

Jacob Delafield?  No!  Her being contracted and shivered at the thought of him.  A will tardily developed, if all accounts of his school and college days were true, but now, as she believed, invincible; a mystic; an ascetic; a man under whose modest or careless or self-mocking ways she, with her eye for character, divined the most critical instincts, and a veracity, iron, scarcely human—­a man before whom one must be always posing at one’s best—­that was a personal risk too great to take for a Julie Le Breton.

Unless, indeed, if it came to this—­that one must think no more of love—­but only of power—­why, then—­

A ring at the door, resounding through the quiet side street.  After a minute the Scotchwoman opened the drawing-room door.

“Please, miss, is this meant for you?”

Julie took the letter in astonishment.  Then through the door she saw a man standing in the hall and recognized Captain Warkworth’s Indian servant.

“I don’t understand him,” said the Scotchwoman, shaking her head.

Julie went out to speak with him.  The man had been sent to Crowborough House with instructions to inquire for Miss Le Breton and deliver his note.  The groom of the chambers, misinterpreting the man’s queer English, and thinking the matter urgent—­the note was marked “immediate”—­had sent him after the ladies to Heribert Street.

The man was soon feed and dismissed, and Miss Le Breton took the letter back to the drawing-room.

So, after all, he had not failed; there on her lap was her daily letter.  Outside the scanty March sun, now just setting, was touching the garden with gold.  Had it also found its way into Julie’s eyes?

Now for his explanation: