y's," said
Mrs. Hilliard, with pride. "You ought to have seen her when Sir Noel
first brought her home, she was the most beautiful creature I ever
looked at. Ah, it was such a pity he was killed. I suppose they'll be
having Sir Rupert's taken next and hung beside her. He don't look much
like the Thetfords; he's his mother over again--a Vandeleur, dark and
still."

If Mrs. Weymore made any reply, the housekeeper did not catch it; she
was standing with her face averted, hardly looking at the portraits, and
was the first to leave the picture-gallery.

There were a few more rooms to be seen--a drawing-room suite, now closed
and disused; an ancient library, with a wonderful stained window, and a
vast echoing reception-room. But it was all over at last, and Mrs.
Hilliard, with her keys, trotted cheerfully off; and Mrs. Weymore was
left to solitude and her own thoughts once more.

A strange person, certainly. She locked the door and fell down on her
knees by the bedside, sobbing until her whole form was convulsed.

"Oh! why did I come here? Why did I come here?" came passionately with
the wild storm of sobs. "I might have known how it would be! Nearly nine
years--nine long, long years, and not to have forgotten yet!"

CHAPTER V.

A JOURNEY TO LONDON.

Very slowly, very monotonously went life at Thetford Towers. The only
noticeable change was that my lady went rather more into society, and a
greater number of visitors came to the manor. There had been a
children's party on the occasion of Sir Rupert's eighth birthday, and
Mrs. Weymore had played for the little people to dance; and my lady had
cast off her chronic gloom, and been handsome and happy as of old. There
had been a dinner-party later--an unprecedented event now at Thetford
Towers; and the weeds, worn so long, had been discarded, and in diamonds
and black velvet Lady Thetford had been beautiful, and stately, and
gracious, as a young queen. No one knew the reason of the sudden change,
but they accepted the fact just as they found it, and set it down,
perhaps, to woman's caprice.

So, slowly the summer passed; autumn came and went, and it was December,
and the ninth anniversary of Sir Noel's sudden death.

A gloomy, day--wet, and bleakly cold. The wind, sweeping over the angry
sea, surged and roared through the skeleton trees; the rain lashed the
windows in rattling gusts; and the leaden sky hung low and frowning over
the drenched and dreary earth. A d