saw that he was not the only occupant of the room, for a lady was
sitting in the broad bay-window. He snatched off his cap and murmured
an apology.

"I beg your pardon! I did not know anyone was in the room," he said.

The lady was young and handsome, with a beauty which owed a great deal
to colour. Her hair was a rich auburn, her complexion of the delicate
purity which sometimes goes with that coloured hair--"milk and roses,"
it used to be called. Her eyes were of china blue, and her lips rather
full, but of the richest carmine. She was exquisitely dressed, her
travelling costume evidently of Redfern's build, and one hand, from
which she had removed the glove, was loaded with costly rings; diamonds
and emeralds as large as nuts, and of the first water.

But it was not her undeniable beauty, or her dress and costly
jewellery, which impressed Stafford so much as the proud, scornfully
listless air with which she regarded him as she leant back
indolently--and a little insolently--tapping the edge of the table with
her glove.

"Pray don't apologise," she said, languidly. "This is a public room, I
suppose!"

"Yes, I think so," said Stafford, in his pleasant, frank way; "but one
doesn't rush into a public room with one's hat on if he has reason to
suppose that a lady is present. I thought there was no one here--the
curtain concealed you: I am sorry."

She shrugged her shoulders and gave him the faintest and most
condescending of bows; then, as he reached the door, she said:

"Do you think it will be moonlight to-night?"

Stafford naturally looked rather surprised at this point-blank
meteorological question.

"I shouldn't be surprised if it were," he said. "You see, this is a
very changeable climate, and as it is raining now it will probably
clear up before the evening."

"Thanks!" she said. "I am much obliged--"

"Oh, my opinion isn't worth much," he put in parenthetically, but she
went on as if he had not spoken.

--"I should be still further obliged if you would be so kind as to tell
my father--he is outside with the carriage somewhere--that I am tired
and that I would rather not go on until the cool of the evening."

"Certainly," said Stafford.

He waited a moment to see if she had any other requests, or rather
orders, and then went out and found the gentleman with the strongly
marked countenance, in the stable-yard beside the carriage to which the
hostler and the help were putting fresh horses.

Staff