said so to Miss Everard. There's
something mysterious in the matter, for her face flushed, and she
stammered something about startling family secrets that had come to
light, the over-excitement of which had hastened Lady Thetford's end. I
don't like the look of things, and I'm altogether in the dark. That
painter resembles the Thetfords a great deal too closely for the mere
work of chance; and yet, if Mrs. Weymore is his mother, I don't see how
there can be anything in _that_. It's odd--confoundedly odd!"

Col. Jocyln rambled on as he walked the floor, his brows knitted into a
swarthy frown. His daughter sat and eyed him wistfully.

"Did no one ask for me, papa? Am I not to go over?"

"Sir Rupert didn't ask for you. May Everard did, and I promised to fetch
you to-morrow. Aileen, things at Thetford Towers have a suspicious look
to-day; I can't see the light yet, but I suspect something wrong. It may
be the very best thing that could possibly happen, this postponed
marriage. I shall make Sir Rupert clear matters up completely before my
daughter becomes his wife."

Col. Jocyln, according to promise, took his daughter to Thetford Towers
next morning. With bated breath, and beating heart, and noiseless tread,
Aileen Jocyln entered the house of mourning, which yesterday she had
thought to enter a bride. Dark and still, and desolate it lay, the
brilliant morning light shut out, unbroken silence everywhere.

"And this is the end of earth, its glory and its bliss," Aileen thought,
as she followed her father slowly up stairs, "the solemn wonder of the
winding-sheet and the grave."

There were two watchers in the dark room when they entered, May Everard,
pale and quiet, and the young artist, Guy Legard. Even in that moment,
Col. Jocyln could not repress a supercilious stare of wonder to behold
the housekeeper's son in the death-chamber of Lady Thetford. And yet it
seemed strangely his place, for it might have been one of those lusty
old Thetfords, framed up stairs, stepped out of the canvas, and dressed
in the fashion of the day.

"Very bad taste all the same," the proud old colonel thought, with a
frown; "very bad taste on the part of Sir Rupert. I shall speak to him
on the subject presently."

He stood in silence beside his daughter, looking down at the marble
face. May, shivering drearily in a large shawl, and looking like a wan
little spirit, was speaking in whispers to Aileen.

"We persuaded Rupert--Mr. Legard and I