from
a distance, loyally seated at the claimant's side, was as nothing to the
dark splendour of her despair when the claimant was in his new-made
grave. It was the day after the burial that she had sent for Stephen;
and her letter had arrived, as it happened, when he was thinking of the
girl, wondering whether she had friends who would stand by her, or
whether a member of his family might, without being guilty of bad taste,
dare offer help.

Her tear-blotted letter had settled that doubt, and it had been so
despairing, so suggestive of frenzy in its wording, that Stephen had
impulsively rushed off to South Kensington at once, without stopping to
think whether it would not be better to send a representative combining
the gentleness of the dove with the wisdom of the serpent, and armed for
emergencies with a blank cheque.

Margot's hair, so charmingly dressed now, folding in soft dark waves on
either side her face, almost hiding the pink-tipped ears, had been
tumbled, that gloomy afternoon six weeks ago, with curls escaping here
and there; and in the course of their talk a great coil had fallen down
over her shoulders. It was the sort of thing that happens to the heroine
of a melodrama, if she has plenty of hair; but Stephen did not think of
that then. He thought of nothing except his sympathy for a beautiful
girl brought, through no fault of her own, to the verge of starvation
and despair, and of how he could best set about helping her.

She had not even money enough to buy mourning. Lorenzi had left debts
which she could not pay. She had no friends. She did not know what was
to become of her. She had not slept for many nights. She had made up her
mind to die as her father had died, because it seemed the only thing to
do, when suddenly the thought of Stephen had flashed into her mind, as
if sent there by her guardian angel. She had heard that he was good and
charitable to everybody, and once she had seen him looking at her
kindly, in court, as if he were sorry for her, and could read something
of what was in her heart. She had imagined it perhaps. But would he
forgive her for writing to him? Would he help her, and save her life?

Any one who knew Stephen could have prophesied what his answer would be.
He had hated it when she snatched his hand to kiss at the end of their
interview; but he would scarcely have been a human young man if he had
not felt a sudden tingle of the blood at the touch of such lips as
Margot Lor