re long, and the lids, opaquely white and fringed with jet-black
lashes, slanted downwards a little at the outer corners, bestowing a
curiously intense expression, such as one sometimes sees in the eyes of
an actor, and the mouth was the same vividly scarlet mouth of the face
in the miniature, at once passionate and sensitive.

The French strain in the Malincourt family had reproduced itself
indubitably, both in the appearance of Pauline and of Pauline's
daughter. Would the mother's tragedy, fruit of her singular charm and of
a pride which had accorded love but a secondary place in her scheme of
life, also be re-enacted in the case of the daughter? It seemed almost
as though Patrick must have had pre-vision of some like fiery ordeal
though which his "little old pal" might have to pass, so urgent had been
the warning he had uttered.

Sara shivered, as if she, too, felt a prescience of coming disaster. It
was as though a shadow had fallen across her path, a shadow of which the
substance lay hidden, shrouded in the mists which veil the future.

CHAPTER IV

ELISABETH--AND HER SON

The entrance to Barrow Court was somewhat forbidding. A flight of
shallow granite steps, flanked by balustrades of the same austere
substance, terminating in huge, rough-hewn pillars, led up to an
enormous door of ancient oak, studded with nails--destined, it would
seem, to resist the onslaught of an armed multitude. The sternness of
its aspect, when the great door was closed, seemed to add an increased
warmth to the suggestion of welcome it conveyed when, as now, it was
swung hospitably open, emitting a ruddy glow of firelight from the hall
beyond.

Sara was standing at the top of the granite steps, waiting to greet the
Durwards, whose approach was already heralded by the humming of a motor
far down the avenue.

A faint regret disquieted her. This was the last--the very last--time
she would stand at the head of those stairs in the capacity of a hostess
welcoming her guests; and even now her position there was merely an
honorary one! In a few minutes, when Mrs. Durward should step across the
threshold, it was she who would be transformed into the hostess, while
Sara would have to take her place as a simple guest in the house which
for twelve years had been her home.

Thrusting the thought determinedly aside, she watched the big limousine
swing smoothly round the curve of the drive and pull up in front of the
house, and there was no t