clerks in an office," he remarked, in his cheery way. "All with our
noses to the paper, writing as if we lived by it! Here, Moody, let one
of the servants take this at once to Mr. Hardyman's."

The messenger was despatched. Robert returned, and waited near his
mistress, with the directed envelope in his hand. Felix sauntered back
slowly towards the picture-gallery, for the third time. In a moment more
Lady Lydiard finished her letter, and folded up the bank-note in it. She
had just taken the directed envelope from Moody, and had just placed the
letter inside it, when a scream from the inner room, in which Isabel was
nursing the sick dog, startled everybody. "My Lady! my Lady!" cried the
girl, distractedly, "Tommie is in a fit? Tommie is dying!"

Lady Lydiard dropped the unclosed envelope on the table, and ran--yes,
short as she was and fat as she was, ran--into the inner room. The two
men, left together, looked at each other.

"Moody," said Felix, in his lazily-cynical way, "do you think if you or
I were in a fit that her Ladyship would run? Bah! these are the things
that shake one's faith in human nature. I feel infernally seedy. That
cursed Channel passage--I tremble in my inmost stomach when I think of
it. Get me something, Moody."

"What shall I send you, sir?" Moody asked coldly.

"Some dry curacoa and a biscuit. And let it be brought to me in the
picture-gallery. Damn the dog! I'll go and look at Hobbema."

This time he succeeded in reaching the archway, and disappeared behind
the curtains of the picture-gallery.

CHAPTER IV.

LEFT alone in the drawing-room, Moody looked at the unfastened envelope
on the table.

Considering the value of the inclosure, might he feel justified in
wetting the gum and securing the envelope for safety's sake? After
thinking it over, Moody decided that he was not justified in meddling
with the letter. On reflection, her Ladyship might have changes to make
in it or might have a postscript to add to what she had already written.
Apart too, from these considerations, was it reasonable to act as if
Lady Lydiard's house was a hotel, perpetually open to the intrusion of
strangers? Objects worth twice five hundred pounds in the aggregate were
scattered about on the tables and in the unlocked cabinets all round
him. Moody withdrew, without further hesitation, to order the light
restorative prescribed for himself by Mr. Sweetsir.

The footman who took the curacoa into the pictur