She sat looking meditatively into the fire, swinging her dogskin gloves in her hands.  She wore a plain pearl grey walking dress and deerstalker hat with a single quill in it.  The severe but immaculate simplicity of her toilette might have been designed to accentuate the barbarities of Blanche Moyat’s cheap finery.

“I understood that you would be in town for at least three weeks,” I remarked.  “I trust that his Grace is well.”

“I trust that he is,” she answered.  “I see nothing of him in London.  He has company meetings and political work every moment of his time.  I do not believe that there is any one who works harder.”

“He has, at least,” I remarked, “the compensation of success.”

“You are wondering, I suppose,” she said, looking up at me quickly, “what has brought me back again so soon.”

“I certainly did not expect you,” I admitted.

She rose abruptly.

“Come outside,” she said, “and I will show you.  Bring your hat.”

We passed into the March twilight.  She led the way down the cliff and towards the great silent stretch of salt marshes.  An evening wind, sharp with brine, was blowing in from the ocean, stirring the surface of the long creeks into silent ripples, and bending landwards the thin streaks of white smoke rising amongst the red-tiled roofs of the village.  I felt the delicate sting of it upon my cheeks.  Lady Angela half closed her eyes as she turned her face seawards.

“I came for this,” she murmured.  “There is nothing like it anywhere else.”

We stood there in silence for several long minutes.  Then she turned to me with a little sigh.

“I am content,” she said.  “Will you come up and dine with us to-night?  Blenavon will be there, you know.”  I hesitated.

“I am afraid it is rather a bother to you to leave your work,” she continued, “but I am not offering you idle hospitality.  I really want you to come.”

“In that case,” I answered, “of course I shall be delighted.”

She pointed to Braster Grange away on the other side of the village.  I noticed for the first time that it was all lit up.

“Have you heard anything of our new neighbours?” she asked.

“Only their names,” I answered.  “I did not even know that they had arrived.”

“There is only a woman, I believe,” she said.  “I have met her abroad, and I dislike her—­greatly.  I hear that my brother spends most of his time with her, and that he has dined there the last three nights.  It is not safe or wise of him, for many reasons.  I want to stop it.  That is why I have asked you to come to us.”

“It is quite sufficient,” I told her.  “If you want me for any reason I will come.  I am two days ahead of my work.”