Altogether, it was an odd, fiery impression that he made,--whether from
that golden-brown tint of skin that always seems full of slumbering
light, or from the teeth that flashed so beneath the _triste_ moustache
whenever the haughty lips parted and unbent their curve, or whether it
were a habit the eyes seemed to have of accompanying all his thoughts
with a play of flame.

"Really," said he,--and it may have been a subtile inner musical trait
of his tone that took everybody's will captive,--"I was not
aware"--making a long step into the room, with a certain lordly bearing,
yet almost at a loss to whom he should address himself. "I am Earl St.
George Erne. May I inquire"--

"My name is Eloise Changarnier," said its owner, drawing herself up, it
being incumbent on her to receive him.

He bowed, and advanced.

"Mrs. Arles, then, I presume,--my cousin Disbrowe Erne's cousin. I
expected to find you here."

Mrs. Arles, after a hurried acknowledgment, slipped over to Eloise.

"I have heard your father speak of him," she murmured. "They had
business-relations. He is Mr. Erne's legal heir, in default of
sufficient testament, I believe. He must have come to claim the
property."

"He!" said Eloise, with sublime scorn. "The property is mine! My father
left such commands!"

"But he can have no other reason for being here. Strange the lawyer
didn't write! He is certainly at home again."

"I have not had time to open the mail to-day; it lies in the hall.
Hazel! the mail-bag."

And directly afterward its contents were before her.

She hurriedly shifted and reshifted the letters of factors and agents,
and broke the seal of one, while Earl St. George Erne deliberately
warmed his long white hands at the blaze, and, supposing Eloise
Changarnier to be a guest of the lonely Mrs. Arles, wondered with some
angry amusement at her singular deportment.

Mrs. Arles was right. The letter in Eloise's hand, which had been
intended to reach her earlier, was from their old lawyer, but lately
returned from England. In it he informed her that the scrap of paper on
the authority of which she had assumed control of the property was
worthless,--and that not only was Earl St. George Erne the heir of his
cousin, but that some three years previously he had lent that cousin a
sum of money sufficient to cover much more than the whole value of The
Rim, taking in payment only promissory notes, whose indorser was since
insolvent. This sum--as Mr.