Mallorca, with a deplorable excess of zeal, has been acting without
my orders in respect to the property of the Val d'Erraha. I hasten
to place myself and possessions at your disposition, and take the
liberty of writing to request an interview, instead of calling on
you at your hotel, for reasons which you will readily understand,
knowing as you do the gossiping ways of hotels. As an old friend of
your father's, and one who moved and lived in neighbourly
intercourse with him before your birth, and before the deplorable
death of your mother, I now waive ceremony, and beg that you and
your uncle will come and take tea with me this afternoon at my
humble abode in the 'Calle de la Paz.'--Believe me, dear Miss
Challoner, yours very sincerely,
"CIPRIANI DE LLOSETA DE MALLORCA."

Eve read this letter in her room in the Hotel of the Four Nations at
Barcelona. She had only been on the mainland twenty-four hours when
it was delivered to her by a servant of the Count's, who came to her
apartment and delivered it into her own hands, as is the custom of
Spanish servants.

Eve Challoner had grown older during the last few days. She had
been brought face to face with life as it really is, and not as we
dream it in the dreams of youth. She was not surprised to receive
this letter, although she had no idea that the Count de Lloseta was
in Spain. But the varying emotions of the last week had, as it
were, undermined the confident hopefulness with which we look
forward when we are young, and sometimes when we are old, to the
management of our own lives here below. She was beginning to
understand certain terms which she had heard applied to human
existence, and to which she had hitherto attached no special meaning