h him. Almost every morning discovered him in
the larger apartments of the castle, taking down and rehanging the
dilapidated pictures, with the assistance of the indispensable Dare;
his fingers stained black with dust, and his face expressing a busy
attention to the work in hand, though always reserving a look askance
for the presence of Paula.

Though there was something of subterfuge, there was no deep and double
subterfuge in all this. De Stancy took no particular interest in his
ancestral portraits; but he was enamoured of Paula to weakness. Perhaps
the composition of his love would hardly bear looking into, but it was
recklessly frank and not quite mercenary. His photographic scheme was
nothing worse than a lover's not too scrupulous contrivance. After the
refusal of his request to copy her picture he fumed and fretted at the
prospect of Somerset's return before any impression had been made on
her heart by himself; he swore at Dare, and asked him hotly why he had
dragged him into such a hopeless dilemma as this.

'Hopeless? Somerset must still be kept away, so that it is not hopeless.
I will consider how to prolong his stay.'

Thereupon Dare considered.

The time was coming--had indeed come--when it was necessary for Paula to
make up her mind about her architect, if she meant to begin building in
the spring. The two sets of plans, Somerset's and Havill's, were hanging
on the walls of the room that had been used by Somerset as his studio,
and were accessible by anybody. Dare took occasion to go and study both
sets, with a view to finding a flaw in Somerset's which might have been
passed over unnoticed by the committee of architects, owing to their
absence from the actual site. But not a blunder could he find.

He next went to Havill; and here he was met by an amazing state of
affairs. Havill's creditors, at last suspecting something mythical
in Havill's assurance that the grand commission was his, had lost all
patience; his house was turned upside-down, and a poster gleamed on the
front wall, stating that the excellent modern household furniture was
to be sold by auction on Friday next. Troubles had apparently come in
battalions, for Dare was informed by a bystander that Havill's wife was
seriously ill also.

Without staying for a moment to enter his friend's house, back went
Mr. Dare to the castle, and told Captain De Stancy of the architect's
desperate circumstances, begging him to convey the news in some wa