He stood appalled at this revelation in a sphere of knowledge which he held to be particularly his own.

CHAPTER XI

It was a week after the departure of Dyce Lashmar.  Lady Ogram had lived in agitation, a state which she knew to be the worst possible for her health.  Several times she had taken long drives to call upon acquaintances, a habit suspended during the past twelvemonth; it exhausted her, but she affected to believe that the air and movement did her good, and met with an outbreak of still more dangerous choler the remonstrances which her secretary at length ventured to make.  On the day following this characteristic scene, Constance was at work in the library, when the door opened, and Lady Ogram came in.  Walking unsteadily, a grim smile on her parchment visage, she advanced and stood before the writing-table.

“I made a fool of myself yesterday,” sounded in a hollow voice, of tremulous intonation.  “Is it enough for me to say so?”

“Much more than I like to hear you say, Lady Ogram,” answered Constance, hastening to place a chair for her.  “I have been afraid that something had happened which troubled you.”

“Nothing at all.  The contrary.  Look at that photo, and tell me what you think of it.”

It was the portrait of a girl with features finely outlined, but rather weak in expression; a face pleasant to look upon, and at the first glance possessing a quality of distinction, which tended however to fade as the eye searched for its constituents, and to lose itself in an ordinary prettiness.

“I was going to say,” began Constance, “that it seemed to remind me of—­”

She hesitated.

“Well?  Of what?”

“Of your own portrait in the dining-room.  Yes, I think there is a resemblance, though far-away.”

Lady Ogram smiled with pleasure.  The portrait referred to was a painting made of her soon after her marriage, when she was in the prime of her beauty; not good as a work of art, and doing much less than justice to the full-blooded vigour of the woman as she then lived, but still a picture that drew the eye and touched the fancy.

“No doubt you are right.  This girl is a grand-niece of mine, my brother’s son’s daughter.  I only heard of her a week ago.  She is coming to see me.”

Constance now understood the significance of Mr. Kerchever’s visit, and the feverish state of mind in which Lady Ogram had since been living.  She felt no touch of sympathetic emotion, but smiled as if the announcement greatly interested her; and in a sense it did.

“I can quite understand your impatience to see her.”

“Yes, but one shouldn’t make a fool of oneself.  An old fool’s worse than a young one.  Don’t think I build my hopes on the girl.  I wrote to her, and she has written to me—­not a bad sort of letter; but I know nothing about her, except that she has been well enough educated to pass an examination at London University.  That means something, I suppose, doesn’t it?”