Every six months the advertisements with the offers of reward were
renewed; every six months the story was retold in the papers. It had
become one of the common topics of the day. People talked of the Earl of
Mountdean's daughter, of her strange disappearance, of the mysterious
silence that had fallen over her. Then, as the years passed on, it was
agreed that she would never be found, that she must be dead. The earl's
truest friends advised him to marry again. After years of bitter
disappointment, of anguish and suspense, of unutterable sorrow and
despair, he resigned himself to the entire loss of Madaline's child.

* * * * *

Nature had made Philippa L'Estrange beautiful, circumstances had helped
to make her proud. Her father, Lord L'Estrange, died when she was quite
a child, leaving her an enormous fortune that was quite under her own
control. Her mother, Lady L'Estrange, had but one idea in life, and that
was indulging her beautiful daughter in her every caprice. Proud,
beautiful, and wealthy, when she most needed her mother's care that
mother died, leaving her sole mistress of herself. She was but seventeen
then, and was known as one of the wealthiest heiresses and loveliest
girls of the day. Her first step was, in the opinion of the world, a
wise one; she sent for a widowed cousin, Lady Peters, to live with her
as chaperon. For the first year after her mother's death she remained at
Verdun Royal, the family estate. After one year given to retirement,
Philippa L'Estrange thought she had mourned for her mother after the
most exemplary fashion She was just nineteen when she took her place
again in the great world, one of its brightest ornaments.

An afternoon in London in May. The air was clear and fresh; there was in
it a faint breath of the budding chestnuts, the hawthorn and lilac; the
sun shone clear and bright, yet not too warmly.

On this afternoon Miss L'Estrange sat in the drawing-room of the
magnificent family mansion in Hyde Park. The whole world could not have
produced a more marvelous picture. The room itself was large, lofty,
well proportioned, and superbly furnished; the hangings were of
pale-rose silk and white lace the pictures and statues were gems of art,
a superb copy of the Venus of Milo gleaming white and shapely from
between the folds of rose silk, also a marble Flora, whose basket was
filled with purple heliotropes, and a Psyche that was in itself a dream
of b