ismal day--very like that other, nine
years ago, that had been Sir Noel's last.

In Lady Thetford's boudoir a bright-red coal-fire blazed. Pale-blue
curtains of satin damask shut out the winter prospect, and the softest
and richest of bright carpets hushed every footfall. Before the fire, on
a little table, my lady's breakfast temptingly stood; the silver, old
and quaint; the rare antique porcelain sparkling in the ruddy firelight.
An easy-chair, carved and gilded, and cushioned in azure velvet, stood
by the table; and near my lady's plate lay the letters and papers the
morning's mail had brought.

A toy of a clock on the low marble mantel chimed musically ten as my
lady entered. In her dainty morning _negligee_, with her dark hair
rippling and falling low on her neck, she looked very young, and fair,
and graceful. Behind her came her maid, a blooming English girl, who
took off the covers, and poured out my lady's chocolate.

Lady Thetford sank languidly into the azure velvet depths of her chair
and took up her letters. There were three--one, a note from her man of
business; one, an invitation to a dinner-party; and the third, a big
official-looking document, with a huge seal, and no end of postmarks.
The languid eyes suddenly lighted; the pale cheeks flushed as she took
it eagerly up. It was a letter from India from Captain Everard.

Lady Thetford sipped her chocolate, and read her letter leisurely, with
her slippered feet on the shining fender. It was a long letter, and she
read it over, slowly, twice, three times before she laid it down. She
finished her breakfast, motioned her maid to remove the service, and
lying back in her chair, with her deep, dark eyes fixed dreamily on the
fire, she fell into a reverie of other days far gone. The lover of her
girlhood came back to her from over the sea. He was lying at her feet
once more in the long summer days, under the waving trees of her
girlhood's home. Ah! how happy, how happy she had been in those by-gone
days, before Sir Noel Thetford had come, with his wealth and his title,
to tempt her from her love and truth.

Eleven struck, twelve, from the musical clock on the mantel, and still
my lady sat, living in the past. Outside the wintry storm raged on; the
rain clamored against the curtained glass, and the wind sighed among the
trees. With a long sigh my lady awoke from her dream, and mechanically
took up the _Times_ newspaper--the first of the little heap.

"Vain,