“I told you yesterday,” Romayne answered, “that a dread of the return of the voice had been present to me all the morning, and that I had come to see the picture with an idea of trying if change would relieve me.  While I was in the gallery I was free from the dread, and free from the voice.  When I returned to the hotel it tortured me—­and Mr. Penrose, I grieve to say, saw what I suffered.  You and I attributed the remission to the change of scene.  I now believe we were both wrong.  Where was the change?  In seeing you and Lady Loring, I saw the two oldest friends I have.  In visiting your gallery, I only revived the familiar associations of hundreds of other visits.  To what influence was I really indebted for my respite?  Don’t try to dismiss the question by laughing at my morbid fancies.  Morbid fancies are realities to a man like me.  Remember the doctor’s words, Loring.  Think of a new face, seen in your house!  Think of a look that searched my heart for the first time!”

Lord Loring glanced once more at the clock on the mantel-piece.  The hands pointed to the dinner hour.

“Miss Eyrecourt?” he whispered.

“Yes; Miss Eyrecourt.”

The library door was thrown open by a servant.  Stella herself entered the room.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PRIEST OR THE WOMAN?

LORD LORING hurried away to his dressing room.  “I won’t be more than ten minutes,” he said—­and left Romayne and Stella together.

She was attired with her customary love of simplicity.  White lace was the only ornament on her dress of delicate silvery gray.  Her magnificent hair was left to plead its own merits, without adornment of any sort.  Even the brooch which fastened her lace pelerine was of plain gold only.  Conscious that she was showing her beauty to the greatest advantage in the eyes of a man of taste, she betrayed a little of the embarrassment which Romayne had already noticed at the moment when she gave him her hand.  They were alone, and it was the first time she had seen him in evening dress.

It may be that women have no positive appreciation of what is beautiful in form and color—­or it may be that they have no opinions of their own when the laws of fashion have spoken.  This at least is certain, that not one of them in a thousand sees anything objectionable in the gloomy and hideous evening costume of a gentleman in the nineteenth century.  A handsome man is, to their eyes, more seductive than ever in the contemptible black coat and the stiff white cravat which he wears in common with the servant who waits on him at table.  After a stolen glance at Romayne, Stella lost all confidence in herself—­she began turning over the photographs on the table.

The momentary silence which followed their first greeting became intolerable to her.  Rather than let it continue, she impulsively confessed the uppermost idea in her mind when she entered the room.