Mr. Chetwynd come here," she said to the servant.

In a minute or two the door was again opened, and there entered a tall, grey-haired man, with a grave and rather kindly expression of face.

She held out the letter, and said, in a cold, clear tone:

"Do you know the contents of this letter?"

"I do, your ladyship," said he.

"And you have been sent to see what money I should take for keeping out of the way, and not troubling Lord Knottingley? Very well——"

"I assure your ladyship——"

"You need not speak," she said, with a dignity of gesture which abashed him—which made him regard her with the half-frightened, half-admiring look she had many a time seen on the faces of the scene-shifters after one of her passionate climaxes—"I presume I am still the Marchioness of Knottingley?"

"Certainly."

"And my husband has commissioned you to receive my instructions?"

"He has, your ladyship; and if you would only allow me to explain the circumstances——"

"Mr. Chetwynd, you and I used to talk frankly with each other. I hope you will not embarrass yourself by making an apology for his lordship, when he himself has done that so admirably in this letter. Now, be good enough to attend to what I say. You will secure for me and my daughter a passage to America by the earliest vessel we can reach from here; and to-morrow morning you will accompany us on the first stage of the journey. I will take so much money from you as will land us in New York; whatever surplus there may be will be returned to Lord Knottingley."

"May I beg your ladyship to consider—to remain here until I communicate with his lordship?"

"I have considered," she said, calmly, in a tone which put an end to further remonstrance, "and I do not choose to remain in this house another day."

So Mr. Chetwynd withdrew. He saw nothing of this strangely self-possessed woman until the carriage was at the door next morning, ready to take her from the house which she had cast for ever behind her.

When he did see her he scarcely recognised her. She was haggard and white; her eyes were red and wild; she appeared to be utterly broken down. She was dressed in black, and so was the little girl she led by the hand. He did not know that she had spent the entire night in her daughter's room, and that it was not sleep which had occupied those long hours.

So it was that Annie Napier and her daughter arrived in America; and there she went again upon the stage, under the name of Annie Brunel, and earned a living for both of them. But the old fire had gone out; and there was not one who recognised in the actress her who had several years before been the idol of London. One message only she sent to her husband; and it was written, immediately on her reaching New York, in these words: