"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, an
