were proud to receive him. He gave no trouble, and the
preparation of his coffee and boiled egg was all the cooking he had done
for him. Mrs. Tart would have felt strangely upset had she known that
the said coffee and egg were, on some days, his only food till tea-time;
she was under the impression that he lunched at his club when not
engaged to friends. Both she and Mr. Tart took immense pains with his
clothes, and he would rather have been well valeted than eat luxurious
luncheons every day.

He went out at once after getting Murray's letter, because he wanted to
call on Molly before he heard any more of the important intelligence.

Molly was alone when he was announced. She had told the butler she was
"not at home," but somehow the man decided to show Sir Edmund up because
he saw that he wished to be shown up. Edmund had always had an odd
influence below stairs, partly because he never forgot a servant's
face.

Molly coloured deeply when she saw her visitor. She was annoyed to think
that he would make her talk against her will--and they would not be
interrupted. She could have used strong language to the butler, but she
did not dare tell him that she would now see visitors. It would look to
Edmund as if she were afraid of a _tete-a-tete_.

Almost as soon as he was in the room she had an impression that he was
quite at home, curiously at his ease.

"I am glad the house is so little changed. I came to my first dance
here. You have done wonderfully well, and all on the old lines. A friend
told me it was the hugest success."

A remembrance of past jokes as to Edmund's second-hand compliments and
his friend "Mr. Harris" came into Molly's mind, but she only felt angry
at the remembrance.

He talked on about the pictures and the furniture until she became more
natural. It was impossible not to be interested in her work, and the
decoration and furnishing of the whole house was her own doing, not that
of any hireling adviser. Then, too, he knew its history, and she became
keenly interested. She had at times a strong feeling of the past life
still in possession of the house, into which her own strangely fated
life had intruded. She wanted, half-consciously, to know if her guilty
secret was a desecration or only a continuance of something that had
gone before.

Suddenly she leant forward with the crude simplicity he was glad to see
again.

"Have there been any wicked people here?" Her voice was low and young.

"'Al