It was an afternoon which Feversham was long to remember; for the next night was the night of the dance, and as the band struck up the opening bars of the fourth waltz, Ethne left her position at the drawing-room door, and taking Feversham's arm passed out into the hall.
The hall was empty, and the front door stood open to the cool of the summer night.

From the ballroom came the swaying lilt of the music and the beat of the dancers' feet.

Ethne drew a breath of relief at her reprieve from her duties, and then dropping her partner's arm, crossed to a side table.
"The post is in," she said.

"There are letters, one, two, three, for you, and a little box." She held the box out to him as she spoke,--a little white jeweller's cardboard box,--and was at once struck by its absence of weight.
"It must be empty," she said.
Yet it was most carefully sealed and tied.

Feversham broke the seals and unfastened the string.