ent but the pleasure of a trained
eye.

Melrose smiled.

"Pray take that chair!" he said, with exaggerated deference. "Your
visits are rare, Lady Tatham! Is it--twenty years? I regret I have no
drawing-room in which to receive you. But Mr. Faversham and I talk of
furnishing it before long. You are, I believe, acquainted with Mr.
Faversham?"

He waved his hand, and suddenly Victoria became aware of another person
in the room. Faversham standing tall and silent, amid the show of
majolica, bowed to her formally, and Victoria slightly acknowledged the
greeting. It seemed to her that Melrose's foraging eyes travelled
maliciously between her and the agent.

"Mr. Faversham and I only unpacked a great part of this stuff yesterday,"
said Melrose, with much apparent good humour. "It has been shut up in one
of the north rooms ever since a sale in Paris at which I bought most of
the pieces. Crockett wished to see it" (he named the most famous American
collector of the day). "He shall see it. I understand he will be here
to-morrow, having missed his train to-day. He will come no doubt with his
check-book. It amuses me to lead these fellows on, and then bid them good
morning. They have the most infernal assumptions. One has to teach them
that an Englishman is a match for any American!"

Victoria sat passive. Faversham took up a pile of letters and moved
toward the door. As he opened it, he turned and his eyes met Victoria's.
She wavered a moment under the passionate and haughty resentment they
seemed to express, no doubt a reflection of the reply to his letter sent
him by Harry that morning. Then the door shut and she was alone with
Melrose.

That gentleman leant back in his chair observing her. He wore the curious
cloaklike garment of thin black stuff, in which for some years past he
had been accustomed to dress when indoors; and the skullcap on his
silvery white hair gave added force to the still splendid head and
aquiline features. A kind of mocking satisfaction seemed to flicker
through the wrinkled face; and the general aspect of the man was still
formidable indeed. And yet it was the phantom of a man that she beheld.
He had paled to the diaphanous whiteness of the Catholic ascetic; his
hand shook upon his stick; the folds of the cloak barely concealed the
emaciation of his body. Victoria, gazing at him, seemed to perceive
strange intimations and presages, and, in the deep harsh eyes, a spirit
at bay.

She began quietl