nd a little hand crept into his and black flashing
eyes looked up, and a soft voice whispered,--

"Thou didst never speak of--this, the most charming of thy
possessions, heretofore, Cedric. I knew not thou didst inherit so
beauteous a being from thy father. But Sir John,--England has not
heard of his death--"

"Sh! sh! she does not know," Cedric answered.

"Not know--ah!" and Lady Constance drew from him and looked at
Katherine with malice and thought evil; "'tis not Sir John's daughter,
'tis some trick Cedric plays upon his guests and me; it goes to show
that his relations to her are ill, and his intentions are to raise her
to our level. Nay, nay, Cedric, I will lift thee beyond such a thing.
When he has time alone, I will gain his ear and taunt him with a
debauched youth; free from heart or conscience; a rake to betray; and
I will win him from beauteous, youthful Bacchante. 'Tis his pleasure
to swear and swagger; but at twenty-three he should not begin to
carouse with female beauty. 'Tis time, and I will tell him so, for him
to bring a lady as wife to the castle. I will speak to him at once. He
has gone too far."

Lord Cedric drew Katherine to inspect the trophies of the chase, and
explained their kind and the mode of capture. She with others followed
him; the gentler folk raising frocks from pools and streams of blood,
thereby displaying high-heeled shoe and slender ankle and ruffles of
rare lace; and they gathered close about Mistress Penwick, drinking in
her simple convent ways of glance and gesture and fresh, young spirit.

Then his Lordship led them to the grand saloon. It was the glory
of the castle, this great room of forty feet in width and sixty in
length. The ceiling supported upon either side by slender Corinthian
pillars, was panelled and exquisitely frescoed with nude female
figures that were reflected in the highly polished floor of marquetry
woods. The walls were covered with old tapestries and rare pictures.
There were two immense windows; the one at the south end of the room
was quite twenty feet square of Egyptian style. The one to the north
reached from floor to ceiling and from side to side. It was draped by
a single ruby-coloured velvet curtain that was so artistically caught
by rope-like cords of silk that, by a draw, could be lifted upward
and to either side in luxurious folds, exposing the entire window. At
present the great saloon was lighted by seven immense lustres of fifty
candles eac