"What do you want ?" she asked, sharply.

"I never rang for you." "A letter, my lady.

The messenger waits for an answer." The man presented his salver with the letter on it, and withdrew.
Lady Janet recognized the handwriting on the address with a look of surprise.

"Excuse me, my dear," she said, pausing, with her old-fashioned courtesy, before she opened the envelope.

Mercy made the necessary acknowledgment, and moved away to the other end of the room, little thinking that the arrival of the letter marked a crisis in her life.