when
the person against whom it is made thinks so little of it as to turn
aside to discuss a point of etiquette in connection with another woman.

Seeing that her accuser was silent and confused, Lydia recovered her
tongue and colour, and the equability of her temper. It was, therefore,
with some raillery that she continued her speech:

"I see how it is," she said contemptuously, "Diana has called you into
her councils in order to fix this absurd charge on to me. Afraid to come
herself, she sends you as the braver person of the partnership. I
congratulate you on your errand, Mr. Denzil."

"You can laugh as much as you like, Mrs. Vrain, but the matter is more
serious than you suppose."

"Oh, I am sure that my loving stepdaughter will make it as serious as
possible. She always hated me."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Vrain," said Lucian, colouring with annoyance, "but I
did not come here to hear you speak ill of Miss Vrain."

"I know that! She sent you here to speak ill _of_ me and do ill _to_ me.
Well, so you and she accuse me of killing Mark? I shall be glad to hear
the evidence you can bring forward. If you can make your charge good I
should smile. Oh, I guess so!"

Denzil noticed that when Mrs. Vrain became excited she usually spoke
plain English, without the U. S. A. accent, but on growing calmer, and, as
it were, recollecting herself, she adopted the Yankee twang and their
curious style of expression and ejaculation. This led him to suspect
that the fair Lydia was not a born daughter of the Great Republic,
perhaps not even a naturalised citizeness, but had assumed such
nationality as one attractive to society in Europe and Great Britain.

He wondered what her past really was, and if she and her father were the
doubtful adventurers Diana believed them to be. If so, it might happen
that Lydia would extricate herself out of her present unpleasant
position by the use of past experience. To give her no chance of such
dodging, Lucian rapidly detailed the evidence against her so that she
would be hard put to baffle it. But in this estimate he quite underrated
Lydia's nerve and capability of fence, let alone the dexterity with
which she produced a satisfactory reply to each of his questions.

"We will begin at the beginning, Mrs. Vrain," he said soberly, "say from
the time you drove your unfortunate husband out of his own house."

"Now, I guess that wasn't my fault," explained Lydia. "I wasn't in love
with old man Mark, but