The stranger now looked at his watch, bade them good day, and took his leave.

CHAPTER XV.  Interview between Lady Gourlay and the Stranger

—­Dandy Dulcimer makes a Discovery—­The Stranger receives Mysterious Communications.

From Constitution Hill our friend drove directly to Merrion square, the residence of Lady Gourlay, whom he found alone in the drawing-room.  She welcomed him with a courtesy that was expressive at once of anxiety, sorrow, and hope.  She extended her hand to him and said, after the usual greetings were over: 

“I fear to ask what the result of your journey has been—­for I cannot, alas! read any expression of success in your countenance.”

“As yet,” replied the stranger, “I have not been successful, madam; but I do not despair.  I am, and have been, acting under an impression, that we shall ultimately succeed; and although I can hold out to your ladyship but very slender hopes, if any, still I would say, do not despair.”

Lady Gourlay was about forty-eight, and although sorrow, and the bitter calamity with which the reader is already acquainted, had left their severe traces upon her constitution and features, still she was a woman on whom no one could look without deep I interest and sympathy.  Even at that age, her fine form and extraordinary beauty bore up in a most surprising manner against her sufferings.  Her figure was tall—­its proportions admirable; and her beauty, faded it is true, still made the spectator feel, with a kind of wonder, what it must have been when she was in the prime of youth and untouched by affliction.  She possessed that sober elegance of manner that was in melancholy accordance with her fate; and evinced in every movement a natural dignity that excited more than ordinary respect and sympathy for her character and the sorrows she had suffered.  Her face was oval, and had been always of that healthy paleness than which, when associated with symmetry and expression—­as was the case with her—­there is nothing more lovely among women.  Her eyes, which were a dark brown, had lost, it is true, much of the lustre and sparkle of early life; but this was succeeded by a mild and mellow light to which an abiding sorrow had imparted an expression that was full of melancholy beauty.

For many years past, indeed, ever since the disappearance of her only child, she had led a secluded life, and devoted herself to the Christian virtues of charity and benevolence; but in such a way as to avoid anything like ostentatious display.  Still, such is the structure of society, that it is impossible to carry the virtues for which she was remarkable to any practical extent, without the world by degrees becoming cognizant of the secret.  The very recipients themselves, in the fulness of their heart, will commit a grateful breach of confidence with which it is impossible to quarrel.