w, the agent having felt obliged to
confess, lest later she might hear the story and try to get out of her
bargain on the strength of it. But he had eloquently explained that if
there were no drawback the house--being a large one with many
rooms--would have commanded twice the price at which he could offer it
to her ladyship. He had added that the murder, committed long ago, had
been almost forgotten by every one except old inhabitants; and as the
villa had been occupied by several tenants since its evil days, and
thoroughly redecorated, it need no longer have disagreeable associations
even for the most sensitive minds.

Lady Dauntrey's mind was not sensitive. She had hoped that her guests
would not hear the tale, and she had thought that she would not care
herself. Perhaps she would not have cared, if everything had gone as
well with her and her husband as they had expected, for then she would
have been cheerful, and could have laughed at superstition. But when the
people she wanted to know would not know her, when Dauntrey's system did
not work as it had worked on the toy roulette, when the servants stole,
or left without notice, and when the guests quarrelled and complained,
she began to feel that there was a curse upon the house. She fancied
that, if she had not taken it, but had run larger risks and chosen a
more expensive villa, perhaps things would have been better.

In spite of herself she thought a great deal about the man and the
woman who had done the murder. From the agent she had heard no details,
and though the case had made a great sensation at the time it happened,
years ago, she had been far away in South Africa, and had not given much
attention to it. Some sly hints of Secundina's, however, had shown her
that the servants knew, and she had not been able to resist asking
questions. Afterward she could not put out of her head Secundina's
description of the dreadful couple.

The man had been of good birth, the woman _bourgeoise_, but clever. They
had gambled and made money, eventually losing it again, and all their
capital besides. Then they had grown desperate, at their wits' end, and
they had killed a woman who trusted and thought of them as her friends.
At night, when Eve lay awake worrying, as she often did--especially when
Dauntrey had been losing--she seemed to see the two haggard faces
staring at her hopelessly, growing and taking shape in the darkness.
Worse than all, she seemed to understand so