ain for some weeks at Gunnersbury; when a
house at Greystone was taken (though it would not be ready for them
till Michaelmas); when she was endeavouring, day after day, to teach
Hughie, and to manage her servants, and to support a wavering hope,
there arrived one morning a letter from Mrs. Strangeways. It was dated
from the hotel which Dymes had mentioned, and it asked Alma to call
there. A simple, friendly invitation, suggestive of tea and chat. Alma
did not speak of it, and for an hour or two thought she could disregard
it altogether. But that evening she talked to Harvey of shopping she
had to do in town, and the following afternoon she called upon Mrs.
Strangeways.

A lift carried her to the topmost, or all but topmost, storey of the
vast hotel, swarming, murmurous. She entered a small sitting-room,
pretentiously comfortless, and from a chair by the open window--for it
was a day of hot sunshine--Mrs. Strangeways rose to greet her; quite in
the old way, smiling with head aside, cooing rapidly an effusive
welcome. Alma looked round to see that the door was shut; then,
declining the offered hand, she said coldly----

'You are mistaken if you think I have come as a friend.'

'Oh! I am so sorry to hear you say that. Do sit down, and let me hear
all about it. I have so looked forward to seeing you.'

'I am only here to ask what good it can do you to talk ill of me.'

'I really don't understand. I am quite at a loss.'

'But I know for certain that you have tried to injure me by telling
extraordinary falsehoods.'

Mrs. Strangeways regarded her with an air of gently troubled
deprecation.

'Oh, you have been grievously misled. Who can have told you this?'

'The name doesn't matter. I have no doubt of the fact.'

'But at least you will tell me what I am supposed to have said.'

Alma hesitated, and only after several interchanges of question and
answer did the full extent of her accusation appear. Thereupon Mrs
Strangeways smiled, as if with forbearance.

'Now I understand. But I have been cruelly misrepresented. I heard such
a rumour, and I did my best to contradict it. I heard it,
unfortunately, more than once.'

Again Alma found herself in conflict with an adroitness, a
self-possession, so much beyond her own, that the sense of being
maliciously played with goaded her into rage.

'No one but yourself could ever have started such a story!'

'You mean,' sounded the other voice, still soft, though not quite s