the opinion that you were a
kind of Arabian Nights myth."

"I am glad to disappoint you," replied Seton, finding something very
refreshing in the company of this pretty girl, who wore a creased
Burberry, and stray locks of whose abundant bright hair floated about
her face in the most careless fashion imaginable.

She turned to her cousin, frowning in a rather puzzled way.

"Whatever have you been burning here?" she asked. "There is such a
curious smell in the room."

Gray laughed more heartily than he had laughed that night, glancing in
Seton's direction.

"So much for your taste in cigars!" he cried

"Oh!" said Margaret, "I'm sure it's not Mr. Seton's cigar. It isn't a
smell of tobacco."

"I don't believe they're made of tobacco!" cried Gray, laughing louder
yet, although his merriment was forced.

Seton smiled good-naturedly at the joke, but he had perceived at the
moment of Margaret's entrance the fact that her gaiety also was assumed.
Serious business had dictated her visit, and he wondered the more to
note how deeply this odor, real or fancied, seemed to intrigue her.

She sat down in the chair which Gray placed by the fireside, and her
cousin unceremoniously slid the brown packet of cigarettes across the
little table in her direction.

"Try one of these, Margaret," he said. "They are great, and will quite
drown the unpleasant odor of which you complain."

Whereupon the observant Seton saw a quick change take place in the
girl's expression. She had the same clear coloring as her cousin, and
now this freshness deserted her cheeks, and her pretty face became quite
pale. She was staring at the brown packet. "Where did you get them?" she
asked quietly.

A smile faded from Gray's lips. Those five words had translated him
in spirit to that green-draped room in which Sir Lucien Pyne was lying
dead. He glanced at Seton in the appealing way which sometimes made him
appear so boyish.

"Er--from Pyne," he replied. "I must tell you, Margaret--"

"Sir Lucien Pyne?" she interrupted.

"Yes."

"Not from Rita Irvin?"

Quentin Gray started upright in his chair.

"No! But why do you mention her?"

Margaret bit her lip in sudden perplexity.

"Oh, I don't know." She glanced apologetically toward Seton. He rose
immediately.

"My dear Miss Halley," he said, "I perceive, indeed I had perceived all
along, that you have something of a private nature to communicate to
your cousin."

But Gray stood up, and:

"