tory of
its own, centuries old, he offered no garrulous details of past grandeur,
as most servants would. As they walked through a dining-room of
magnificent proportions, but meagrely furnished, they passed a half-open
door, and Virginia had a glimpse of a charming little room with a huge
projecting window. Mechanically she paused, then drew away quickly as she
saw that mademoiselle was seated at a table arranging the flowers she had
gathered in the melancholy garden. The old man hobbled on, as if the door
had not existed, and Virginia would have followed, had not the girl in
black stepped forward and invited them in, with a certain proud humility.

"This is our sitting-room--my aunt's and mine," she said. "My aunt is not
here now, so come in, if you will. It is a small room; still, it is one
of the brightest and most home-like we have left."

She held open the door, and the three visitors obeyed her gesture of
invitation; but suddenly the girl's face changed. The blood streamed up
to her forehead, then ebbed again, leaving her marble-pale. She gave a
slight start, as if she would have changed her mind and kept the
strangers from entering; yet she made no motion to arrest them.

"She has just remembered something in this room that she doesn't wish us
to see," thought Virginia; but it was too late to retreat, without
drawing attention to an act which she could not explain. They all went
in, the others apparently suspecting nothing; but in a second Virginia
instinctively guessed the reason of her hostess's sudden constraint, and
the sympathetic thrill that ran through her own veins surprised her. In a
panel of the darkly wainscotted and curiously gilded wall was placed a
life-size portrait of a man. It was an oil-painting, defective in
technique, perhaps, but so spirited, so extraordinarily lifelike as to
give an effect, at first glance in the twilight, as if a handsome young
man were just stepping in through an open door. Virginia seemed to meet
the brilliant, audacious eyes; the frank, almost boyish smile was for
her; and--whether because of the half-told story of this strange house,
or because of the brave young splendour of the figure in the
portrait--her heart gave a bound such as it had never yet given for a
man.

She did not need to be told that this was the counterfeit presentment of
him who, in some mysterious way, had brought ruin upon those who loved
him; and suddenly she understood the full meaning of Loria