His hollow eyes burned upon her.  Wrapped in his cloak, his white hair gleamimg amid the wonderful ewers and dishes, he had the aspect of some wizard or alchemist, of whom a woman might ask poison for her rival, or a philter for her lover.  Victoria, fascinated, was held partly by the apparition before her, partly by an image—­a visualization in the mind.  She saw the ballroom in that splendid house, now the British Embassy in Paris, and once the home of Pauline Borghese.  She saw herself in white, a wreath of forget-me-nots in her hair.  She has just heard, and from a woman friend, a story of lust and cruelty in which Edmund Melrose was the principal actor.  He comes to claim her for a dance; she dismisses him, in public, with a manner and in words that scathe—­that brand.  She sees his look of rage, as of one struck in the face—­she feels again the shudder passing through her—­a shudder of release, horror passing into thanksgiving.

But—­what long tracts of life since then!—­what happiness for her!—­what decay and degeneracy for him!  A pang of sheer pity, not so much for him as for the human lot, shot through her, as she realized afresh to what evening of life he had come, from what a morning.

At any rate her manner in reply showed no resentment of his tone.

“All these things are dead for both of us,” she said quietly.

He interrupted her.

“You are right—­or partly right.  Edith is dead—­that makes it easier for you and me to meet.”

“Yes.  Edith is dead,” she said, with sudden emotion.  “And in her last days she spoke to me kindly of you.”

He made no comment.  She resumed: 

“I desire, if I can—­and if you will allow me—­to recall to you the years when we were cousins and friends together—­blotting out all that has happened since.  If you remember—­twenty years ago, when you and your wife arrived to settle here, I then came to ask you to bury the feud between us, and to let us meet again at least as neighbours and acquaintances.  You refused.  Then came the breakdown of your marriage.  I was honestly sorry for it.”

He smiled.  She was quite conscious of the mockery in the smile; but she persevered.

“And now, for many years, I have not known—­nobody here has known, whether your wife was alive or dead.  Suddenly, a few days ago, she and your daughter arrived at Duddon, to ask me to help them.”

“Precisely.  To make use of you, in order to bring pressure to bear on me!  I do not mean to lend myself to the proceeding!”

Victoria flushed.

“In attempting to influence me, Mrs. Melrose, I assure you, had no weapon whatever but her story.  And to look at her was to see that it was true.  She admits—­most penitently—­that she was wrong to leave you—­” “And to rob me!  You forget that.”

Victoria threw back her head.  He remembered that scornful gesture in her youth.

“What did that matter to you?  In this house!”