upper
part of the house and Grace settled down on the drawing-room sofa to a
nice little nap. She fell asleep to the comforting patter of rain upon
the windows and the howling of the storm down the chimney. She dreamt,
as she often did, about food.

She was awakened, with a sudden start, by a sense of apprehension. This
happened to her now so often that there was nothing strange in it, but
she jumped up, with beating heart, from the sofa, crying out: "What's
happened? What's the matter?"

She realised that the room had grown darker since she fell asleep, and
although it was early still there was a sort of grey twilight that
stood out against a deeper dusk in the garden beyond.

"What is it?" she said again, and then saw that Jenny, the maid, was
standing in the doorway.

"Well, Jenny?" she asked, trying to recover some of her dignity.

"It's a man, mum," said the little girl. (Grace had got her cheap from
an orphanage.) "A gentleman, mum. He's asking for Mrs. Trenchard. 'E
give me 'is card. Oh, mum, 'e is wet too!"

She had scarcely finished, and Grace had only taken the card, when
Mathew Cardinal came forward out of the hall. He was a dim and
mysterious figure in that half-light, but Grace could see that he was
more battered and shabby than on his last visit. His coat collar was
turned up. She could only very vaguely see his face, but it seemed to
her strangely white when before it had been so grossly red.

She was struck by his immobility. Partly perhaps because she had been
roused from sleep and was yet neither clear nor resolved, he seemed to
her some nightmare figure. This was the man who was responsible for all
the trouble and scandal, this was the man who threatened to drive Paul
and herself from her home, this was the blackguard who had not known
how to behave in decent society. But behind that was the terror of the
mystery that enveloped Maggie--the girl's uncle, the man who had shared
in her strange earlier life, and made her what she now was. As he stood
there, motionless, silent, the water dripping from his clothes, Grace
was as frightened as though he had already offered her personal
violence or held a pistol to her head.

"What do you want?" she asked hoarsely, stepping back to the sofa.
Jenny had left the room.

"I want to see my niece," he answered, still without moving. She
recognised then, strangely, in his voice a terror akin to her own. He
also was afraid of something. Of what? It was not