ancestors.

She wanted to shout and shriek her hatred into the evil face of the man
who had tricked her. She wanted to frighten him, to threaten, to lash him
with her tongue. For she was conscious all the while of her own inability
to harm him. Without defining the thought, her common-sense taught her
one lamentable, unjust fact; namely, that unless a woman is loved by the
object of her wrath she can hardly make him suffer.

She rose at last, and, lighting the candles on the writing-table, she
proceeded to write to Seymour Michael. Even in this epistle the natural
cunning of her nature appeared.

"DEAR SEYMOUR "--she wrote on a sheet of paper bearing the address of the
house in which she was staying, the roof under which Seymour Michael had
first paid his careless tribute to her wealth--"I learnt by accident this
evening that your regiment has returned to England. If you are in London,
I hope you will make time to come and see me. Come to-morrow evening at
four, if that time is convenient to you. ANNA."

She purposely signed her Christian name only, purposely refrained from
vouchsafing any personal news. She did not know how much or how little he
might know.

Ringing for her maid, she sent the letter to the post, addressed to
Seymour Michael, at the Service Club, of which she knew him to be a
member. Then she went to bed to toss and turn all night. The doctors,
good, portly Clapham practitioners, had warned her in the usual way to
spare herself all bodily fatigue and mental worry for the sake of the
little one. It is so easy to urge each other to spare all mental worry,