rle! Is any harm to come of it? I did the
evil; let me bear the brunt!"

She shook her head gravely. "You don't know my brother!"

"The sooner I master the subject the better then," I said. I couldn't
help relieving myself--at least by the tone of my voice--of the
antipathy with which, decidedly, this gentleman had inspired me. "Not
perhaps that we should get on so well together!" After which, as she
turned away, "Are you VERY much afraid of him?" I added.

She gave me a shuddering sidelong glance. "He's looking at me!"

He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror,
framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a shelf of
antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the reflexion of his
sister's person. It was evident that I too was under his attention, and
was resolved I wouldn't be suspected for nothing. "Miss Searle," I said
with urgency, "promise me something."

She turned upon me with a start and a look that seemed to beg me to
spare her. "Oh don't ask me--please don't!" It was as if she were
standing on the edge of a place where the ground had suddenly fallen
away, and had been called upon to make a leap. I felt retreat was
impossible, however, and that it was the greater kindness to assist her
to jump.

"Promise me," I repeated.

Still with her eyes she protested. "Oh what a dreadful day!" she cried
at last.

"Promise me to let him speak to you alone if he should ask you--any wish
you may suspect on your brother's part notwithstanding." She coloured
deeply. "You mean he has something so particular to say?"

"Something so particular!"

"Poor cousin!"

"Well, poor cousin! But promise me."

"I promise," she said, and moved away across the long room and out of
the door.

"You're in time to hear the most delightful story," Searle began to me
as I rejoined him and his host. They were standing before an old sombre
portrait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne's time, whose ill-painted
flesh-tints showed livid, in the candle-light, against her dark drapery
and background. "This is Mrs. Margaret Searle--a sort of Beatrix
Esmond--qui se passait ses fantaisies. She married a paltry Frenchman,
a penniless fiddler, in the teeth of her whole family. Pretty Mrs.
Margaret, you must have been a woman of courage! Upon my word, she looks
like Miss Searle! But pray go on. What came of it all?"

Our companion watched him with an air of distaste for his boisterous
homage and of