The first three attempts were evidently failures, for she tore them up and threw the pieces into a scrap-basket; the fourth effort, however, seemed to prove satisfactory.
"My dear Mr. Mordaunt,—Many thanks for your and your wife's kind invitation. I have altered my plans, and no longer expect to go to New York.
"Midnight is a friend I have never found wanting.
"Very sincerely, Violet Easton."
She read this over carefully, folded, and placed it in an envelope. Upon it she wrote the name of John Mordaunt, Esq., and the address, and ringing a bell, delivered the letter to a hall-boy to mail.
Long after midnight she was still sitting there, gazing seemingly into space.
Jack Mordaunt looked for an instant at the calendar which stood in front of him upon his office desk.
In large numbers were printed 17, and
underneath the month of March was registered. He stopped writing for a moment. Somehow that date had forced his mind back just one year, and as he sat there he was going over again the incidents of that time. They were all so vivid—too vivid, in fact, to be altogether pleasing. Had he forgotten Violet Easton? He had tried to forget her, but his attempts were vain. Since they parted he had never heard from or of her save that one short note, and yet at odd intervals her remembrance would force itself upon his mind. Her parting words, "You belong to me," haunted him.