and
opportunities for development, she might become an absolutely delightful
companion. She had looked very handsome on the day of her presentation
at Court. Her height and carriage had made her even impressive. She was
a woman, after all, to be counted on in one's plans.

But he was most conscious that his affection for her had warmed. A
slight embarrassment was commingled with the knowledge, but that was the
natural result of his dislike to the sentimental. He had never felt a
shadow of sentiment for Audrey, who had been an extremely light, dry,
empty-headed person, and he had always felt she had been adroitly thrust
upon him by their united families. He had not liked her, and she had not
liked him. It had been very stupidly trying. And the child had not lived
an hour. He had liked Emily from the first, and now--It was an absolute
truth that he felt a slight movement in the cardiac region when the
carriage turned into Berkeley Square. The house would look very pleasant
when he entered it. Emily would in some subtle way have arranged that it
should wear a festal, greeting air. She had a number of nice, little
feminine emotions about bright fires and many flowers. He could picture
her childlike grown-up face as it would look when he stepped into the
room where they met.

Some one was ill in Berkeley Square, evidently very ill. Straw was laid
thick all along one side of it, depressing damp, fresh straw, over which
the carriage rolled with a dull drag of the wheels.

It lay before the door of his own house, he observed, as he stepped out.
It was very thickly scattered. The door swung open as the carriage
stopped. Crossing the threshold, he glanced at the face of the footman
nearest to him. The man looked like a mute at a funeral, and the
expression was so little in accord with his mood that he stopped with a
feeling of irritation. He had not time to speak, however, before a new
sensation arrested his attention,--a faint odour which filled the place.

"The house smells like a hospital," he exclaimed, in great annoyance.
"What does it mean?"

The man he addressed did not answer. He turned a perturbed awkward face
to his superior in rank, an older man, who was house steward.

In the house of mortal pain or death there is but one thing more full of
suggestion than the faint smell of antiseptics,--the gruesome, cleanly,
unpleasant odour,--that is, the unnatural sound of the whispering of
hushed voices. Lord Walderhurst t