st possible smile on his face. For one steeped
in family legends, worshipping the hapless lady's memory with warm
devotion, and reputed a sincere believer in her ghostly wanderings, he
awaited her coming with marvellous composure. In point of fact he had
forgotten all about her, and there was nothing to prevent her coming,
slipping down the steps, and noiselessly into the water, all unnoticed
by him. His eyes were glued to the ceiling, the smile played on his
lips, his ears were filled with sweet echoes, and his thoughts were far
away. Perhaps the dead lady came and passed unseen. That Charlie did
not see her was ridiculously slight evidence whereon to damn so ancient
and picturesque a legend. He thought the same himself, for that night
at dinner--he came in late for dinner--he maintained the credit of the
story with fierce conviction against Mr. Vansittart Merceron's
scepticism.

CHAPTER II

MISS WALLACE'S FRIEND

In old days the Mercerons had been great folk. They had held the
earldom of Langbury and the barony of Warmley. A failure of direct
descent in the male line extinguished the earldom; the Lady Agatha was
the daughter of the last earl, and would have been Baroness Warmley had
she lived. On her death that title passed to her cousin, and continued
in that branch till the early days of the present century. Then came
another break. The Lord Warmley of that day, a Regency dandy, had a
son, but not one who could inherit his honors, and away went the barony
to a yet younger branch, where, falling a few years later into female
hands, it was merged in a brand-new viscounty, and was now waiting till
chance again should restore it to an independent existence. From the
Mercerons of the Court it was gone for ever, and the blot on their
escutcheon which lost it them was a sore point, from which it behooved
visitors and friends to refrain their tongues. The Regent had, indeed,
with his well-known good nature, offered a baronetcy to hide the stain;
but pride forbade, and the Mercerons now held no titles, save the
modest dignity which Charlie's father, made a K.C.B. for services in
the North-West Provinces, had left behind him to his widow. But the old
house was theirs, and a comfortable remnant of the lands, and the
pictures of the extinct earls and barons, down to him whose sins had
robbed the line of its surviving rank and left it in a position, from
an heraldic point of view, of doubtful respectability. Lady Merce