vie's mind was
slightly unhinged for a time. It may not have been so, but one cannot
help wondering if the concealment which she has used to keep from her
family the knowledge of the existence of this disease from which she
has died may not have been something like a return of an old mental
malady.'

Lady Falconer looked genuinely distressed, and protested that certainly
when she knew Mrs. Ogilvie she was in all respects the most sane as
well as one of the most charming of women. 'And as for giving you
dates,' she said pleasantly, 'that is very easily done, for it was in
the year and the month of my marriage that I first met her.'

'That would be?' said Mr. Semple, unlocking his clasped hands and
touching his fingers together in the characteristic manner of the
confidential lawyer.

'That was in December 1885,' she said.

'Ah!' said Mr. Semple contemplatively, 'then it must have been after
little Edward Ogilvie's death, of course.'

'I cannot tell you,' said Lady Falconer, 'because, as I say, Mrs.
Ogilvie never spoke of her loss. Perhaps that does not seem to you
very remarkable, as we only met her in a most casual manner in an
out-of-the-way village in Spain; but we really were on terms of some
intimacy together, and one can only explain her silence by the fact,
which seems to be pretty generally known, that she was a woman of quite
unusual reserve.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Semple; 'I believe no one ever knew Mrs. Ogilvie very
well.'

Mr. Lawrence called to them from behind to suggest that the new row of
greenhouses was an immense improvement, and that they had cost over a
thousand pounds to build.

Lady Falconer politely turned to look back, and then found herself
rather determinedly appropriated by the lawyer.

'I always understood,' he said, 'that Mrs. Ogilvie travelled
considerably in Spain; and, of course, in those days when railways were
fewer, this was considered rather unusual, especially for a lady
travelling with no gentleman with her. How courageous she was!'

'Much more courageous than I was even with my husband with me!' said
Lady Falconer. 'Mrs. Ogilvie had been in quite out-of-the-way parts of
the country; but she spoke the language perfectly, and I believe I used
to hear that she had Spanish blood in her veins.'

'Yes; she had property at Granada, and beyond where the railway now
extends, in some of the more southern provinces,' hazarded Mr. Semple.

'I think if I remember aright,' said La