again:

"Since you knew the lady in life who is now my ghost--and she told you
of Binko--did she not say anything else about her visit to Arranstoun or
its master?"

"Nothing--it was all apparently a blank horror, and she probably wanted
to forget it and him."

"He made some kind of an impression upon her, then--good or bad, since
she wanted to forget him--" eagerly.

Sabine admitted to herself that the umpires might have called "_touche_"
for this.

"It would seem so," she allowed, with what she thought was generosity.

"That is better than only creating indifference."

"Yes--the indifference came later."

"One expected that; but there was a time, you have inferred, when she
felt something. What was it? Can't you tell me?"

Excitement was rising high now in both of them, and the grouse on their
plates remained almost untasted.

"At first, she did not know herself, I think; but afterwards, when she
came to understand things, she felt resentment and hate, and it taught
her to appreciate chivalry and gentleness."

Michael almost cried "_touche_!" aloud.

"He was an awful brute--the owner of Arranstoun, I suppose?"

"Yes--apparently--and one who broke a contract and rather glorified in
the fact."

Michael laughed a little bitterly, as he answered:

"All men are brutes when the moment favors them, and when a woman is
sufficiently attractive. We will admit that the owner of Arranstoun was
a brute."

"He was a man who, I understand, lived only for himself and for his
personal gratification," Mrs. Howard told him.

"Poor devil! He perhaps had not had much chance. You should be
charitable!"

Sabine shrugged her shoulders in that engaging way she had. She had
hardly looked up again at Michael since the beginning, the exigencies of
the dinner-table being excuse enough for not turning her head; but his
eyes often devoured her fascinating, irregular profile to try and
discover her real meaning, but without success.

"He was probably one of those people who are more or less like animals,
and just live because they are alive," Sabine went on. "Who are educated
because they happen to have been born in the upper classes--Who drink
and eat and sport and game because it gives their senses pleasure so to
do--but who see no further good in things."

"A low wretch!"

"Yes--more or less."

Michael's eyes were flashing now--and she did peep at him, when he said:

"But if the original of the ghost had stayed wit