agh's hand. "What is that?" she asked
curiously.

Clodagh looked down at the cheque.

"I have come to do my duty!" she said, with a faint laugh. "Here is
your thousand pounds, darling. May it be enough to buy everything in
life worth having!"

Her voice faltered on the last words; but the touch of emotion was lost
in a sudden embrace from Nance.

"Oh, you darling!--you love!" she cried. "A thousand pounds! I feel a
queen!" She drew back a little, flushing with excitement and pleasure;
and opened the cheque almost reverently. "And can I really, really get
a thousand pounds by signing my name on the back of this? I can't
believe it, you know--I simply _can't_."

She raised her shining eyes to Clodagh's.

Clodagh's face softened.

"Oh, you child!" she said--"you child! It makes me remember our weekly
pennies, just to listen to you. How poor--and how very happy--we were
long ago! Do you remember?"

Nance gave a little cry of recollection.

"Remember, Clo! _Could_ I forget?"

Then followed another impulsive embrace, a kiss, and a whole torrent of
reminiscence. And a quarter of an hour had slipped away before the
entrance of Simonetta with Clodagh's dress recalled them to the
knowledge of present things.

Five minutes before the dinner hour had struck, the sisters entered the
hall. At the foot of the stairs Nance was detained by George Tuffnell;
while Clodagh, left alone for the moment, was at once claimed by
Serracauld.

He came forward from one of the windows, moving with his usual graceful
indolence, and, pausing beside her, looked intently into her face.

"You look radiant to-night," he said.

She laughed.

"Can one ever look radiant in black?"

Serracauld's eyes passed slowly from her face to her slim white neck.

"Yes," he said, in his cool, deliberate voice.

She gave another laugh, slightly shorter and more conscious than the
last. But before she could speak again, he moved a trifle nearer, and
laid his fingers lightly on her fan.

"And how many dances am I to have?"

"I told you I must not dance--yet."

"And I told you that I would not make you dance. How many may I have?"

He bent very close to her; then frowned a little, and drew away again,
as Lady Frances Hope, followed by Mrs. Bathurst and Mansfeldt, came
towards them across the hall.

"You'll give me the dances?" he asked quickly.

Clodagh glanced at the approaching party; then bent her head in assent.

"And which?"

His tone