d also, and they were not
cruel; it was not such a look as he had given her when they parted by
the Pool.

"If it were true?" she asked. "I mean, couldn't Lady Tristram
somehow----?"

"If what was true? Oh, the nonsense you told Duplay?" He laughed. "If it
was true, I should be a nobody and nobody's son. I suppose that would
amuse you very much, wouldn't it? You wouldn't have come to Merrion for
nothing then! But as it isn't true, what's the use of talking?"

He won no belief from her when he said that it was not true; to her
quick mind the concentrated bitterness with which he described what it
would mean to him showed that he believed it and that the thought was no
new one; in imagination he had heard the world calling him many times
what he now called himself--if the thing were true. She drew her cloak
round her and shivered.

"Cold?" he asked.

"No. Wretched, wretched."

"Would you like to see my mother?"

"You wouldn't let her see me?"

"She's asleep, and the nurse is at supper--not that she'd matter. Come
along."

He turned and began to walk quickly toward the house; Mina followed him
as though in a dream. They entered a large hall. It was dark, save for
one candle, and she could see nothing of its furniture. He led her
straight up a broad oak staircase that rose from the middle of it, and
then along a corridor. The polished oak gleamed here and there as they
passed candles in brackets on the wall, and was slippery under her
unaccustomed feet. The whole house was very still--still, cool, and very
peaceful.

Cautiously he opened a door and beckoned her to follow him. Lights were
burning in the room. Lady Tristram lay sleeping; her hair, still fair
and golden, spread over the pillow; her face was calm and unlined. She
seemed a young and beautiful girl wasted by a fever; but the fever was
the fever of life as well as of disease. Thus Mina saw again the lady
she had seen at Heidelberg.

"She won't wake--she's had her sleeping draught," he said; and Mina took
him to mean that she might linger a moment more. She cast her eyes round
the room. Over the fireplace, facing the bed, was a full-length portrait
of a girl. She was dressed all in red; the glory of her white neck, her
brilliant hair, and her blue eyes rose out of the scarlet setting. This
was Addie Tristram in her prime; as she was when she fled with Randolph
Edge, as she was when she cried in the little room at Heidelberg,
"Think of the difference