out of the papers to spare Mrs. Beaumont.
Argentine was a great favourite of hers, and it is said she was in a
terrible state for some time after.'

A curious look came over Villiers's face; he seemed undecided whether to
speak or not. Austin began again.

'I never experienced such a feeling of horror as when I read the account
of Argentine's death. I didn't understand it at the time, and I don't
now. I knew him well, and it completely passes my understanding for what
possible cause he--or any of the others for the matter of that--could
have resolved in cold blood to die in such an awful manner. You know how
men babble away each other's characters in London, you may be sure any
buried scandal or hidden skeleton would have been brought to light in
such a case as this; but nothing of the sort has taken place. As for the
theory of mania, that is very well, of course, for the coroner's jury,
but everybody knows that it's all nonsense. Suicidal mania is not
small-pox.'

Austin relapsed into gloomy silence. Villiers sat silent also, watching
his friend. The expression of indecision still fleeted across his face;
he seemed as if weighing his thoughts in the balance, and the
considerations he was revolving left him still silent. Austin tried to
shake off the remembrance of tragedies as hopeless and perplexed as the
labyrinth of Daedalus, and began to talk in an indifferent voice of the
more pleasant incidents and adventures of the season.

'That Mrs. Beaumont,' he said, 'of whom we were speaking, is a great
success; she has taken London almost by storm. I met her the other night
at Fulham's; she is really a remarkable woman.'

'You have met Mrs. Beaumont?'

'Yes; she had quite a court around her. She would be called very
handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something about her face which I
didn't like. The features are exquisite, but the expression is strange.
And all the time I was looking at her, and afterwards, when I was going
home, I had a curious feeling that that very expression was in some way
or other familiar to me.'

'You must have seen her in the Row.'

'No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it is that which
makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I have never seen
anybody like her; what I felt was a kind of dim far-off memory, vague
but persistent. The only sensation I can compare it to, is that odd
feeling one sometimes has in a dream, when fantastic cities and wondrous
lands and