of her face," said Lady Betty; "and I shall not easily
forget it. Such a wild, haggard look I have seldom seen. She must have
been labouring under some terrible stress of emotion." She gently
withdrew her hand, and appeared lost in thought. "I hope, dear," she
exclaimed suddenly, "that there is nothing horrible happening."

"No, indeed! The thing has got a little bit on your nerves."

"You did not see her," she insisted. "She came full into the light of
our lamp, though it was barely for an instant. My face was turned that
way and yours away from hers."

"Naturally she was startled at the moment!" he ventured. He was certain
Lady Betty's nervous imagination had deceived her, and that her alarm
was groundless.

"It was not a startled look. It was a set look, something like the
desperation of a hunted animal. Some man has treated her badly. Darling,
you don't think she was going to throw herself into the river?"

"Seriously--I don't think anything of the kind. If she had wanted to
take her life, would she have stepped back so promptly?" he argued.

"I daresay you are right," she conceded, though her tone was not wholly
one of conviction.

The hansom pulled up, and he helped her down. They mounted the
house-steps in silence, she unusually engrossed in thought, and with an
unmistakable air of sadness, as if her mind still lingered on this
woman's figure that had flashed on them out of the darkness.

They entered the hall, and after some searching and fumbling he lighted
one of the lamps. His companion shook herself out of her abstraction,
and surveyed the place with affectionate interest. He was anxious she
should take away with her a very definite impression of his future
home, and threw open the various rooms, and led the way into them, as he
held the lamp aloft. They went, too, below stairs, and here Lady Betty's
eyes beheld the many evidences of domestic comfort and foresight that
the Robinsons had established in these regions where they had reigned
supreme. Her face lighted in comprehension, though her thought remained
unexpressed. At last, after they had completely explored the rest of the
house, he led the way up to the studio, and soon had it brilliantly
illuminated. Lady Betty refused the chair he wheeled forward for her.
She preferred to be moving about, to be examining everything at
leisure--his bureau, his great oak worm-eaten armoires, his long, low
chests on whose panels Gothic Church dignitaries stoo