Three days passed.

On the fourth Marcella returned late in the afternoon from a round of parish visits with Mary Harden.

As she opened the oak doors which shut off the central hall of Mellor from the outer vestibule, she saw something white lying on the old cut and disused billiard table, which still occupied the middle of the floor till Richard Boyce, in the course of his economies and improvements, could replace it by a new one.
She ran forward and took up a sheaf of cards, turning them over in a smiling excitement.

"Viscount Maxwell," "Mr.Raeburn," "Miss Raeburn," "Lady Winterbourne and the Misses Winterbourne," two cards of Lord Winterbourne's--all perfectly in form.
Then a thought flashed upon her.

"Of course it is his doing--and I asked him!" The cards dropped from her hand on the billiard table, and she stood looking at them, her pride fighting with her pleasure.