'

She cast a rapid glance over her shoulder, and gathering up her silk
skirt, drew out, from the pocket beneath, the few crumpled pages, and
passed them without a word to Danton. Lawford kept him plainly in view,
as, lowering his great face, he slowly stooped, and holding the loose
leaves with both fat hands between his knees, stared into the portrait.
Then he truculently lifted his cropped head.

'What did I say?' he said. 'What did I SAY? What did I tell old Bethany
in this very room? What d'ye think of that, Mrs Lovat, for a portrait of
Arthur Lawford? What d'ye make of that, Craik--eh? Devil--eh?'

Mrs Lovat glanced with arched eyebrows, and with her finger-tips handed
the sheets on to her neighbour, who gazed with a settled and mournful
frown and returned them to Sheila.

She took the pages, folded them and replaced them carefully in her
pocket. She swept her hands over her skirts, and turned to Danton.

'You agree,' she inquired softly, 'it's like?'

'Like! It's the livin' livid image. The livin' image,' he repeated,
stretching out his arm, 'as he stood there that very night.'

'What will you say, then,' said Sheila, quietly, 'What will you say if I
tell you that that man, Nicholas de Sabathier, has been in his grave for
over a hundred years?'

Danton's little eyes seemed, if anything, to draw back even further
into his head. 'I'd say, Mrs Lawford, if you'll excuse the word, that
it might be a damn horrible coincidence--I'd go farther, an almost
incredible coincidence. But if you want the sober truth, I'd say it was
nothing more than a crafty, clever, abominable piece of trickery. That's
what I'd say. Oh, you don't know, Mrs Lovat. When a scamp's a scamp,
he'll stop at nothing. I could tell you some tales.'

'Ah, but that's not all,' said Sheila, eyeing them steadfastly one by
one. 'We all of us know that my husband's story was that he had gone
down to Widderstone--into the churchyard, for his convalescent ramble;
that story's true. We all know that he said he had had a fit, a heart
attack, and that a kind of--of stupor had come over him. I believe on my
honour that's true too. But no one knows but he himself and Mr Bethany
and I, that it was a wretched broken grave, quite at the bottom of the
hill, that he chose for his resting place, nor--and I can't get the
scene out of my head--nor that the name on that one solitary tombstone
down there was--was...this!'

Danton rolled his eyes. 'I don't begin to f