ou?"

The maid lifted her hands to express her dumb admiration. "Who would not
be happy to be dressed in those lovely clothes, to be decked in those
jewels and to marry a man who will give you everything that the heart
could desire?" Beatrice smiled wearily.

"You are quite wrong, Adeline," she said. "If I could change places with
you at this moment I would gladly do so. You have a sweetheart, I
suppose?"

"Oh, yes, miss. He's in a shop. Some day he hopes to have a shop of his
own, and then----"

"And then you will be married. You love him very dearly, I suppose. And
I----"

Beatrice stopped, conscious of the fact that she was saying too much.
She ate sparingly enough of her breakfast; she went down to the
drawing-room and wrote a few letters. It was not quite ten yet and she
had plenty of time. Lady Rashborough was not an early riser, though
Rashborough himself had breakfasted and gone out long before. Beatrice
was moodily contemplating her presents in the library when Mr. Stephen
Richford was announced. He came in with an easy smile, though Beatrice
could see that his hands were shaking and there was just a suggestion of
fear in his eyes. With all his faults, the man did not drink, and
Beatrice wondered. She had once seen a forger arrested on a liner, and
his expression, as soon as he recognized his position, was just the same
as Beatrice now saw in the eyes of the man she was going to marry.

"What is the matter?" she asked listlessly. "You look as if you had had
some great shock, like a man who has escaped from prison. Your face is
ghastly."

Richford made no reply for a moment. He contemplated his sullen, livid
features in a large Venetian mirror opposite. He was not a pretty object
at any time, but he was absolutely repulsive just at that moment.

"Bit of an upset," he stammered. "Saw a--a nasty street accident. Poor
chap run over."

The man was lying to her; absolutely he was forced to the invention to
save himself from a confession of quite another kind. He was not in the
least likely to feel for anybody else, in fact he had no feeling of
human kindness, as Beatrice had once seen for herself. There had been a
fatal accident at a polo match under their very feet, and Richford had
puffed at his cigarette and expressed the sentiment that if fools did
that kind of thing they must be prepared to put up with the
consequences.

"You are not telling the truth!" Beatrice said coldly. "As if anything
of that