“Dreadfully sudden, the end, Mr. Lashmar!”

“Dreadfully so, indeed,” Dyce responded, in mortuary tones.

“You were present at the seizure, I understand?”

“I was.”

“A good age,” remarked the athletic lawyer, with obvious difficulty subduing his wonted breeziness.  “The doctor tells me that it was marvellous she lived so long.  Wonderful woman!  Wonderful!”

And he too moved away, Lashmar gazing after him, and wishing he knew all that was in the legal mind at this moment.  But that secret must very soon become common property.  Perhaps the contents of Lady Ogram’s will would be known at Hollingford this evening.

He searched vainly for Constance and for May.  The former he did not see until she crossed the hall to enter one of the carriages; the latter appeared not at all.  Had she, then, really left Rivenoak?  Sitting in his hired brougham, in dignified solitude, he puzzled anxiously over this question.  Happily, he would learn everything from Lady Toplady.

In the little church of Shawe, his eyes wandered as much as his thoughts.  Surveying the faces, most of them unknown to him, he noticed that scarcely a person present was paying any attention to the ceremony, or made any attempt to conceal his or her indifference.  At one moment it vexed him that no look turned with interest in his direction; was he not far and away the most notable of all the people gathered here?  A lady and a gentleman sat near him, frequently exchanged audible whispers, and he found that they were debating a trivial domestic matter, with some acerbity of mutual contradiction.  He gazed now and then at the black-palled coffin, and found it impossible to realise that there lay the strange, imperious old woman who for several months had been the centre of his thoughts, and to whom he owed so vast a change in his circumstances.  He felt no sorrow, yet thought of her with a certain respect, even with a slight sensation of gratitude, which was chiefly due, however, to the fact that she had been so good as to die.  Live as long as he might, the countenance and the voice of Lady Ogram would never be less distinct in his memory than they were to-day.  He, at all events, had understood and appreciated her.  If he became master of Rivenoak, the marble bust should always have an honoured place under that roof.

Dyce saw himself master of Rivenoak.  He fell into a delightful dream, and, when the congregation suddenly stirred, he realised with alarm that he had a broad smile on his face.

Rather before the hour she had named, Mrs. Toplady presented herself at the Saracen’s Head.  Lashmar was impatiently expectant; he did his best to appear gravely thoughtful, and behaved with the ceremonious courtesy which, in his quality of parliamentary candidate, he had of late been cultivating.  His visitor, as soon as the door was closed, became quite at her ease.

“Nice little place,” she remarked, glancing about the room.  “You make this your head-quarters, of course?”