pursued him, he could not escape from them, he could scarcely spare
a glance even for the nebuly coat that was blazoned in the corner.
There were questions revolving in his mind for which he found as yet no
answer. There was some mystery to which this portrait might be the
clue. He was on the eve of some terrible explanation; he remembered all
kinds of incidents that seemed connected with this picture, and yet
could find no thread on which to string them. Of course, this head must
have been painted when Lord Blandamer was young, but how could Sophia
Flannery have ever seen it? The picture had only been the flowers and
the table-top and caterpillar all through Miss Euphemia's memory, and
that covered sixty years. But Lord Blandamer was not more than forty;
and as Westray looked at the face he found little differences for which
no change from youth to middle age could altogether account. Then he
guessed that this was not the Lord Blandamer whom he knew, but an older
one--that octogenarian who had died three years ago, that Horatio
Sebastian Fynes, gentleman, who had married Sophia Flannery.

"It ain't a real first-rater," the dealer said, "but it ain't bad. I
shouldn't be surprised if 'twas a Lawrence, and, anyway, it's a sight
better than the flowers. Beats me to know how anyone ever came to paint
such stuff as them on top of this respectable young man."

Westray was back in Cullerne the next evening. In the press of many
thoughts he had forgotten to tell his landlady that he was coming, and
he stood charing while a maid-of-all-work tried to light the
recalcitrant fire. The sticks were few and damp, the newspaper below
them was damp, and the damp coal weighed heavily down on top of all,
till the thick yellow smoke shied at the chimney, and came curling out
under the worsted fringe of the mantelpiece into the chilly room.
Westray took this discomfort the more impatiently, in that it was due to
his own forgetfulness in having sent no word of his return.

"Why in the world isn't the fire lit?" he said sharply. "You must have
known I couldn't sit without a fire on a cold evening like this;" and
the wind sang dismally in the joints of the windows to emphasise the
dreariness of the situation.

"It ain't nothing to do with me," answered the red-armed, coal-besmeared
hoyden, looking up from her knees; "it's the missus. `He was put out
with the coal bill last time,' she says, `and I ain't going to risk
lighting up