so visible upon her delicate
face that Caspar felt a sudden impulse of pity towards the woman who had
suffered in her loneliness more than he had perhaps thought possible. As
she sat and looked at him, a certain pathetic quality showing itself
with more than usual vividness in her soft eyes and drooping mouth, he
was conscious of a desire to take her in his arms and console her for
all the past. But he caught back the impulse with an inward laugh of
scorn. She had no doubt come to run needles into him, as she used to do
in those unlucky days of poverty and struggle. She had a knack of
looking pretty and sweet while she was doing it, he remembered. It would
not do to show any weakness now.

And she--what did she think of him? She was less absorbed with the
consideration of any change in him than with what she intended to say.
What impressed her most were the inflections of his quiet, musical
voice--a voice as unroughened and as gentle as when it wooed her in her
father's Northern Castle years before! She had forgotten its power, but
it made her tremble now from head to foot with a sort of terror that was
not without charm. It was so cold a voice--so cold and calm! She felt
that if it once grew tender and caressing her strength would fail her
altogether. But there was not much fear of tenderness from him--to her.

After that involuntary and rather awkward pause, Lady Alice recollected
herself; and spoke first.

"You must be very much surprised to see me?"

"I am delighted, of course. I could wish"--with a slight smile--"that
the apartment was more worthy of you, and that the circumstances were
less disagreeable; but I am unfortunately not able to alter these
details."

"And it is exactly to these details that you owe my visit," said Lady
Alice, with unexpected calmness.

"Then I ought to be grateful them, no doubt."

She moved uneasily, as if the studied conventionality of his tone jarred
on her a little; and then she said, with an effort that made her words
sound brusque,

"I mean that under ordinary circumstances I should not have come to see
you. But these are so strange--so extraordinary--that you will perhaps
pardon the intrusion. I felt--on reflection--that it was only right for
me to come--to express----"

She faltered, and he took advantage of her hesitation to say, with a
quiet smile--

"I am very much obliged to you. But you should not have taken all this
trouble. A note would have answered the purp