; she hung upon every
message from across the Atlantic.

She had a brother, too; a distinguished, but not a wealthy man. Dr.
Derwent would gladly have seen more of her, gladly have helped to cheer
her life, but a hearty antipathy held him aloof from Lee Hannaford.
Communication between the two families was chiefly maintained through
Dr. Derwent's daughter Irene, now in her nineteenth year. The girl had
visited her aunt at Geneva, and since then had occasionally been a
guest at Ewell. Having just returned from a winter abroad with her
father, and no house being ready for her reception in London, Irene was
even now about to pass a week with her relatives. They expected her
to-day. The prospect of Irene's arrival enabled Mrs. Hannaford and Olga
to find pleasure in the sunshine, which otherwise brought them little
solace.

Neither was in sound health. The mother had an interesting face; the
daughter had a touch of beauty; but something morbid appeared on the
countenance of each. They lived a strange life, lonely, silent; the
stillness of the house unbroken by a note of music, unrelieved by a
sound of laughter. In the neighbourhood they had no friends; only at
long intervals did a London acquaintance come thus far to call upon
them. But for the presence of Piers Otway at meals, and sometimes in
the afternoon or evening, they would hardly have known conversation.
For when Hannaford was at home, his sour muteness discouraged any kind
of talk; in his absence, mother and daughter soon exhausted all they
had to say to each other, and read or brooded or nursed their headaches
apart.

With the coming of Irene, gloom vanished. It had always been so, since
the beginning of her girlhood; the name of Irene Derwent signified
miseries forgotten, mirthful hours, the revival of health and hope.
Unable to resist her influence, Hannaford always kept as much as
possible out of the way when she was under his roof; the conflict
between inclination to unbend and stubborn coldness towards his family
made him too uncomfortable. Vivaciously tactful in this as in all
things, Irene had invented a pleasant fiction which enabled her to meet
Mr. Hannaford without embarrassment; she always asked him "How is your
neuralgia?" And the man, according as he felt, made answer that it was
better or worse. That neuralgia was often a subject of bitter jest
between Mrs. Hannaford and Olga, but it had entered into the life of
the family, and at times seemed to