r your
coming,"

What was in her voice, her rich, beautiful voice? Sir Wilfrid only knew
that while perfectly steady, it seemed to bring emotion near, to make
all the aspects of things dramatic.

"Yes, yes," he replied, in some confusion. "I knew her well, from the
time when she was a girl in the school-room. Poor Lady Rose!"

The figure beside him stood still.

"Then if you were my mother's friend," she said, huskily, "you will hear
patiently what I have to say, even though you are Lady Henry's trustee."

"Indeed I will!" cried Sir Wilfrid, and they walked on.

IV

"But, first of all," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, looking in some
annoyance at the brace of terriers circling and barking round them, "we
must take the dogs home, otherwise no talk will be possible."

"You have no more business to do?"

His companion smiled.

"Everything Lady Henry wants is here," she said, pointing to the bag
upon her arm which had been handed to her, as Sir Wilfrid remembered,
after some whispered conversation, in the hall of Crowborough House by
an elegantly dressed woman, who was no doubt the Duchess's maid.

"Allow me to carry it for you."

"Many thanks," said Mademoiselle Le Breton, firmly retaining it, "but
those are not the things I mind."

They walked on quickly to Bruton Street. The dogs made conversation
impossible. If they were on the chain it was one long battle between
them and their leader. If they were let loose, it seemed to Sir Wilfrid
that they ranged every area on the march, and attacked all elderly
gentlemen and most errand-boys.

"Do you always take them out?" he asked, when both he and his companion
were crimson and out of breath.

"Always."

"Do you like dogs?"

"I used to. Perhaps some day I shall again."

"As for me, I wish they had but one neck!" said Sir Wilfrid, who had but
just succeeded in dragging Max, the bigger of the two, out of the
interior of a pastry-cook's hand-cart which had been rashly left with
doors open for a few minutes in the street, while its responsible
guardian was gossiping in an adjacent kitchen. Mademoiselle Julie
meanwhile was wrestling with Nero, the younger, who had dived to the
very heart of a peculiarly unsavory dust-box, standing near the entrance
of a mews.

"So you commonly go through the streets of London in this whirlwind?"
asked Sir Wilfrid, again, incredulous, when at last they had landed
their charges safe at the Bruton Street door.

"Morning and