see him
again."

"I certainly caught a glimpse of him half an hour ago; but before I
could escape from a geologist who was boring me about the Silurian
system, Kenelm had vanished."

"Perhaps it was his ghost!"

"Well, we certainly live in the most credulous and superstitious age
upon record; and so many people tell me that they converse with the
dead under the table that it seems impertinent in me to say that I don't
believe in ghosts."

"Tell me some of those incomprehensible stories about table-rapping,"
said Lady Glenalvon. "There is a charming, snug recess here behind the
screen."

Scarcely had she entered the recess when she drew back with a start and
an exclamation of amaze. Seated at the table within the recess, his chin
resting on his hand, and his face cast down in abstracted revery, was a
young man. So still was his attitude, so calmly mournful the expression
of his face, so estranged did he seem from all the motley but brilliant
assemblage which circled around the solitude he had made for himself,
that he might well have been deemed one of those visitants from another
world whose secrets the intruder had wished to learn. Of that intruder's
presence he was evidently unconscious. Recovering her surprise, she
stole up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and uttered his name
in a low gentle voice. At that sound Kenelm Chillingly looked up.

"Do you not remember me?" asked Lady Glenalvon. Before he could answer,
Mivers, who had followed the marchioness into the recess, interposed.

"My dear Kenelm, how are you? When did you come to London? Why have you
not called on me; and what on earth are you hiding yourself for?"

Kenelm had now recovered the self-possession which he rarely lost long
in the presence of others. He returned cordially his kinsman's greeting,
and kissed with his wonted chivalrous grace the fair hand which the lady
withdrew from his shoulder and extended to his pressure. "Remember you!"
he said to Lady Glenalvon with the kindliest expression of his soft dark
eyes; "I am not so far advanced towards the noon of life as to forget
the sunshine that brightened its morning. My dear Mivers, your questions
are easily answered. I arrived in England two weeks ago, stayed at
Exmundham till this morning, to-day dined with Lord Thetford, whose
acquaintance I made abroad, and was persuaded by him to come here and
be introduced to his father and mother, the Beaumanoirs. After I had
undergone that