her know that you'll call--when shall we
say--to-morrow? Perhaps you'd care to give me your name----"

The young man smiled good-naturedly. "I couldn't think of troubling you
to that extent."

"In that case, I'll have to ask you to excuse me. All kinds of luck to
you on your return. It must be rather jolly not to be a prisoner. Good
evening."

Tabs crossed the pavement and rang the bell. In order that he might
afford no opportunity for further conversation, he stood with his face
towards the door while he waited for it to be opened. He was very
conscious that the stranger had not departed, but was hovering
immediately in rear of him.

It was Porter who answered his summons. "I'm sorry, your Lordship, Mrs.
Lockwood is out---- No, she didn't leave any word. She's bound to be
back shortly---- Why, certainly, if your Lordship has the time."

While she was closing the front door, he walked across the hall and let
himself into the drawing-room. He went directly over to the empty
fireplace and gazed up at Lady Dawn's portrait. It always seemed to
challenge him--seemed to be trying to say something to him. It was
almost as though it were his conscience hanging there on the wall. He
had an idea that it reproached him for his silence with regard to Lord
Dawn. He felt that, were he to do what his instinctive sense of justice
had first urged--go to Lady Dawn and tell her that her husband had cared
for her--the painted face would be no longer turned away and the
stone-gray eyes no longer averted.

He was haunted by the obsession that he would never have any luck till
he had vindicated the dead man's memory.

It was Maisie who had prevented him up to now--Maisie with her laughter,
her breezy arguments, her short views of life, her contempt for
sentiment, her sledge-hammer motto, with which she shattered the past,
"I never dig up my dead." She had made him hesitant about reopening the
subject. Her sister was the most beautiful woman in England. A man never
knows to what boundaries a woman's jealousy spreads. He feared lest, if
he persisted, she might impute to him less lofty motives than the desire
to play fair by a comrade-in-arms who had gone West.

Something stirred behind him. He swung about and found himself staring
into the face of the stranger who had accosted him on the pavement.

"Sargent painted it ten years ago," the stranger said. "She's not as
young as that now."

"How did you get in?" Tabs demanded.

The s