She glanced at the card presented by her groom-of-the-chambers without taking the trouble to lift it from the salver. “‘Mr. Moss¹ Rubelius.’ I do not know the name—I have no knowledge of any urgent business. You must tell him to go away at once, and not call again.”

“Begging your Grace’s pardon,” remarked the official, “the person seemed to anticipate a message of the kind——”

“Did he? Then,” thought her Grace, “he is not disappointed.”

“And, still begging your Grace’s pardon,” pursued the discreet³ domestic, “he asked me to hand this second card to your Grace.”

It was rather a shabby card, and dog’s-eared as though it had been carried long in somebody’s pocket; but it was large and feminine, and adorned⁴ with a ducal coronet and the Duchess’s own cipher⁵, and scribbled⁶ upon it in pencil, in the Duchess’s own handwriting, were two or three words, simple enough, apparently⁸, and yet sufficiently⁹ fraught¹⁰ with meaning to make their fair reader turn very pale. She did not replace this card upon the salver, but kept it as she said:

“Bring the person to me at once.”

And when the softly stepping servant had left the room—one of her Grace’s private suite¹¹, charmingly furnished as a study—she made haste to tear the card up, 277dropping the fragments into the hottest part of the wood-fire, and thrusting at them with the

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