p with a
nimble accuracy that seemed to stun his relatives.

"Why, look what's here!" he exclaimed, genially displaying a total that,
added, balanced all Portlaw's gains and losses to date. "Why, isn't that
curious, Helen! Right off the bat like that!--cricket-bat," he explained
affably to Tressilvain, who, as dinner was imminent, had begun fumbling
for his check-book.

At Malcourt's suave suggestion, however, instead of drawing a new check
he returned Portlaw's check. Malcourt took it, tore it carefully in two
equal parts.

"Half for you, William, half for me," he said gaily. "My--my! What
strange things do happen in cards--and in the British Isles!"

The dull flush deepened on Tressilvain's averted face, but Lady
Tressilvain, unusually pale, watched her brother persistently during the
general conversation that preceded dressing for dinner.

CHAPTER XXVI

SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

After the guests had gone away to dress Portlaw looked inquiringly at
Malcourt and said: "That misdeal may have been a slip. I begin to
believe I was mistaken after all. What do you think, Louis?"

Malcourt's eyes wandered toward his wife who still bent low over her
sewing. "I don't think," he said absently, and sauntered over to Shiela,
saying:

"It's rather dull for you, isn't it?"

She made no reply until Portlaw had gone upstairs; then looking around
at him:

"Is there any necessity for me to sit here while you play cards this
evening?"

"No, if it doesn't amuse you."

Amuse her! She rested her elbow on the window ledge, and, chin on hand,
stared out into the gray world of rain--the world that had been so
terribly altered for her for ever. In the room shadows were gathering;
the dull light faded. Outside it rained over land and water, over the
encircling forest which walled in this stretch of spectral world where
the monotony of her days was spent.

To the sadness of it she was slowly becoming inured; but the strangeness
of her life she could not yet comprehend--its meaningless days and
nights, its dragging hours--and the strange people around her immersed
in their sordid pleasures--this woman--her husband's sister,
thin-lipped, hard-featured, drinking, smoking, gambling, shrill in
disputes, merciless of speech, venomously curious concerning all that
she held locked in the privacy of her wretchedness.

"Shiela," he said, "why don't you pay your family a visit?"

She shook her head.

"You're afraid they might sus