Wrenching her mind away from apprehensiveness she moved quickly to the kitchen door and into the dimly-lighted dowdy passage-way.  Somewhere beyond the gas flicker and the hat-stand lay—­what?  With all her determination she pushed forward, almost running to the door.  Her hand hovered over the little knob of the lock:  only horror of a renewal of that dreadful sound prompted her to open the door quickly.  She peered into the darkness, faintly silhouetted against the wavering light of the gas.  A man stood there.

“Evening, miss,” said the man.  “Miss Jenny Blanchard?”

She could see there something white.  He was holding it out to her.  A letter!

“For me,” she asked, her voice still unsteady.  She took the letter, a large square envelope.  Mechanically she thanked the man, puzzling at the letter.  From whom could a letter be brought to her?

“There’s an answer,” she heard.  It came from ever so far away, in the dim distance beyond her vague wonderings.  Jenny was lost, submerged in the sensations through which she had passed during the evening.  She was quite unlike herself, timid and fearful, a frightened girl alone in an unhappy house.

“Wait a bit!” she said.  “Will you wait there?”

“Yes,” answered the man, startlingly enough.  “I’ve got the car here.”

The car!  What did it mean?  She caught now, as her eyes were more used to the darkness, the sheen of light upon a peaked cap such as would be worn by a chauffeur.  It filled her mind that this man was in uniform.  But if so, why?  From whom should the letter come?  He had said “Miss Jenny Blanchard.”

“You did say it was for me?  I’ll take it inside. ...”  She left the door unfastened, but the man pulled it right to, so that the catch clicked.  Then Jenny held the letter up under the flame of the passage gas.  She read there by this meagre light her own name, the address, written in a large hand, very bold, with a sharp, sweeping stroke under all, such as a man of impetuous strength might make.  There was a blue seal fastening the flap—­a great pool of solid wax.  Trembling so that she was hardly able to tear the envelope, Jenny returned to the kitchen, again scanning the address, the writing, the blue seal with its Minerva head.  Still, in her perplexity, it seemed as though her task was first to guess the identity of the sender.  Who could have written to her?  It was unheard of, a think for wondering jest, if only her lips had been steady and her heart beating with normal pulsation.  With a shrug, she turned back from the seal to the address.  She felt that some curious mistake had been made, that the letter was not for her at all, but for some other Jenny Blanchard, of whom she had never until now heard.  Then, casting such a fantastic thought aside with another impatient effort, she tore the envelope, past the seal, in a ragged dash.  Her first glance was at the signature.  “Yours always, KEITH.”