int to a _bibelot_ which
lay on a table under the picture, and he said in a low, vibrating tone.

"I give you my word there is some one, who is dead--whom I loved--who
would come back and curse me now, if I should let this thing be, with a
doubt in my heart as to their eventual happiness."

And Lady Ethelrida looked full at him and saw that the man's cold face
was deeply moved and softened.

"If that is so then I will speculate no more," she said. "Listen! I will
trust you!"

"You dear, noble English lady," the financier replied, "how truly I
thank you!" And he let some of the emotion which he felt, gleam from his
eyes, while he changed the conversation.

A few minutes after this, Lady Coltshurst announced it was time to go,
and she would take the girls home. And the Duke's carriage was also
waiting, and good nights were said, and the host whispered to Jimmy
Danvers,

"Take Tancred along with you, too, please. My niece is overtired with
the strain of this evening and I want her to go to bed at once." And to
Tristram he said,

"Do not even say good night, like a dear fellow. Don't you see she is
almost ready to faint? Just go quietly with the rest, and come for her
to-morrow morning to take her to your mother."

So they all left as he wished, and he himself went back upstairs to the
big drawing-room and there saw Zara standing like a marble statue,
exactly as they had left her, and he went forward, and, bending, kissed
her hand.

"Most beautifully endured, my queenly niece!" he said; and then he led
her to the door and up to her room. She was perfectly mute.

But a little while afterwards, as he came to bed himself, he was
startled and chilled by hearing the _Chanson Triste_ being played in her
sitting-room, with a wailing, passionate pathos, as of a soul in
anguish.

And if he could have seen her face he would have seen her great eyes
streaming with tears, while she prayed:

"_Maman_, ask God to give me courage to get through all of this, since
it is for your Mirko."

CHAPTER XIV

Satan was particularly fresh next morning when Tristram took him for a
canter round the Park. He was glad of it: he required something to work
off steam upon. He was in a mood of restless excitement. During the
three weeks of Zara's absence he had allowed himself to dream into a
state of romantic love for her. He had glossed over in his mind her
distant coldness, her frigid adherence to the bare proposition, so that
t