fter that she did not care to talk, but sat for hours busy
with her thoughts, which seemed not altogether sad.

At eleven o'clock next morning, Arnold Jacks was announced. Irene, who
sat with Olga in the drawing-room, had directed that her visitor should
be shown into the library, and there she received him. Arnold stepped
eagerly towards her; not smiling indeed, but with the possibility of a
smile manifest in every line of his countenance. There could hardly
have been a stronger contrast with his manner of the day before
yesterday. For this Irene had looked. Seeing precisely what she
expected, her eyes fell; she gave a careless hand; she could not speak.

Arnold talked, talked. He said the proper things, and said them well;
to things the reverse of proper, not so much as the faintest reference.
This duty discharged, he spoke of the house he had taken; his voice
grew animated; at length the latent smile stole out through his eyes
and spread to his lips. Irene kept silence. Respecting her natural
sadness, the lover made his visit brief, and retired with an air of
grave satisfaction.

CHAPTER XXVI

Olga knew that by her mother's death she became penniless. The income
enjoyed by Mrs. Hannaford under the will of her sister in America was
only for life by allowing a third of it to her husband, she had made
saving impossible, and, as she left no will, her daughter could expect
only such trifles as might legally fall to her share when things were
settled. To her surviving parent, the girl was of course no more than a
stranger. It surprised no one that Lee Hannaford, informed through the
lawyers of what had happened, simply kept silence, leaving his wife's
burial to the care of Dr. Derwent.

Three days of gloom went by; the funeral was over; Irene and her cousin
sat together in their mourning apparel, not simply possessed by natural
grief, but overcome with the nervous exhaustion which results from our
habits and customs in presence of death. Olga had been miserably
crying, but was now mute and still; Irene, pale, with an expression of
austere thoughtfulness, spoke of the subject they both had in mind.

"There is no necessity to take any step at all--until you are quite
yourself again--until you really wish. This is your home; my father
would like you to stay."

"I couldn't live here after you are married," replied the other,
weakly, despondently.

Irene glanced at her, hung a moment on the edge of speech, then s