"You are telling me most astonishing things, Miss Loment. What interest is it of hers to break off this intimacy?"

"Oh, that's the simplest question of all to answer. To keep the matrimonial field clear for herself, of course…Didn't you know she had marked you down?"

"I cannot believe it," said Judge, halting to stare at her, in his bewilderment.

"If you don't know it, I expect everyone else does at your hotel." The words dropped from her lips with such dry assurance that he felt she must be possessed of special knowledge.

He was silent for a moment.

"This is a revelation indeed, Miss Loment!…I don't know what to say to it all. Now you speak of it, I confess I have had my suspicions once or twice lately, but I have always dismissed them as discreditable…But really, such a diabolical plot against the honour of a young girl is wholly unbelievable. It savours more of melodrama."

"Oh, I won't swear to hat part of it, but there's something funny up, and I advise you to keep your eyes opened to the fullest possible extent. I mean to."

"I hardly feel like meeting her after this."

"You must, though-and you must go on behaving to her as nicely as ever. Remember, it's our only chance of going to the house together."

Mrs. Richborough herself at that moment appeared, descending from the hotel.

"I didn't tell you," said Isbel, "but we're returning to town next week."

"What! You're leaving Brighton? But this is very unexpected. Has your aunt changed her plans, or what?"

"I only knew last night. She thinks I am looking unwell."

"Bur you are not feeling unwell?"

"It's useless to deny that my nerves are a bit jangled," replied Isbel carelessly.

"Then she is giving up all idea of my house?"

"I can't say, Mr. Judge. I shall have a word in the matter. We shall see. Don't say any more-here she comes."

The widow came up to them with a prepared smile. "I'm so frightfully sorry to have kept you both waiting. No doubt you've been saying hard things about me?"

"People evidently have spoilt you, Mrs. Richborough," returned Isbel. "When I turn my back on company I invariably expect to be promptly forgotten."

"What ideal modesty! People always talk. The only problem is: have they been pitying us, or annihilating us? I'm not sure I wouldn't rather it were the second."

"Well, you're still alive," was the dry reply.

Judge opened the door of the car gravely, without committing himself to a word, and the ladies got in. While he was settling himself preliminary to starting, the widow turned to Isbel.

"I understood you might have something to say to each other, my dear; that's why I delayed."

"That was very kind of you."

"I do hope we're to be friends. I like you tremendously already."

"What for? I really can't see what I've done to make myself so beloved."

"Oh, it isn't what one does, but what one is. I think you have a perfectly wonderful character, for a girl."

Isbel did not even smile. "My dear Mrs. Richborough, If you were a man I should think you were trying to make love. As it is, I don't understand you in the least."

"Surely it is permissible for women to admire one another's natures? You are so sympathetic, and so tactful, my dear. I'm sure when we know each other better we shall get on splendidly together."

"What good qualities do you bring into the pool, Mrs. Richborough?"

"Alas, my dear! I have only one; and that is a heart."

"So you are to do the feeling, while I am to do the sympathising; is that the arrangement?"

The widow gave a distant, rather melancholy smile.

"No one can deny that you are a very clever girl, and perhaps that is one more reason why I like you."

The dialogue was terminated by the abrupt starting of the car. Isbel glanced at her watch. It was half-past one.

Chapter XIV IN THE SECOND CHAMBER AGAIN

At ten minutes to three, while they were all together in the library on the first floor, Mrs. Richborough and Judge were inspecting one of the corner shelves, with their backs turned upon her-thereby effectually excluding her from the conversation-Isbel seized the opportunity to slip quietly from the room. Descending on tip-toe the servants' staircase opposite, she found herself in the kitchens, through which she was obliged to pass in order to regain the hall. As she went by the foot of the main staircase, she heard her name being called…"Miss Loment! Miss Loment!"…It was Judge's voice. She had been missed already, and the mock search had commenced.

A short half-hour ago, when she had entered the hall from out of doors in company with the others, those strange stairs had not been there. Whether it was that her agitation prohibited the use of her reasoning faculties, or whether that her mind had become surfeited with marvels, it hardly occurred to her to doubt that she should see them now. Hurried to action by the distant hailing, she at once lifted her eyes, anxiously and fearfully, to the wall beyond the fireplace, while still hastening across the floor…There they were!…

She arrived at the foot of the staircase as in a dream, and stood a moment with one shoe poised on the bottom step, her gaze vainly directed towards the invisible top. Then, without changing a muscle of her face, she began to mount.

Half-way up, when the hall was already our of sight, her memory came back and she started piecing together the incidents of her last visit to that extraordinary region of the house. To allow herself time to thoroughly reconstruct everything, she seated herself sideways on one of the steps, staring fixedly downstairs, with twisted neck and eyes which saw nothing…

The more she recollected of that meeting with Judge, the greater became her disquietude; she kept starting nervously to rise, while the blood ebbed and flowed in her cheeks. If in that interview they had succeeded in keeping within the bounds of friendship, it was obviously it had only been by the exercise of great self-control; and, in view of his later confession, who could say what would now happen? The warm sympathy of their exchanges, their almost unseemly anxiety to lay aside all deception with each other, their mutual approval of one another's conduct-upon which the world would pass an altogether different judgement-and, lastly, her gift to him of that scarf, warm from her own neck: all this, as it grew slowly together in her mind, appeared to her as something which was irreconcilable with her true character, as something shameless and dreadful; it was like awaking by degrees to the awful temporary insanity…Only it was not insanity; it was not even an accidental expression of excited feelings, induced by the strange circumstances in which they had found themselves. It was worse than that. It sprang from the genuine and unfeigned emotion of both their hearts…

By what miraculous chance had they met there, at the same hour, on the same day, in the same unreal room of a house which, less than a month ago, she had not known the existence? Judge had not set foot in that weird room for eight years, while she had never been inside it before in her life-and now, suddenly, they meet there, and within a few minutes she has given him a tangible pledge of her favour…

It was more than chance; it was fate. Something-some strange influence in the house, was throwing them together…how far and for what purpose she dared not ask herself. It was of no use to disguise things. Every step they took-inside the house, or out of it-had the direct effect of entangling them more and more, and there could be but one end to it all; an end which bore a double face. The obverse face was noble, uplifting union with a man of unique character; the reverse face was social catastrophe…