A WEEK has passed. The scene opens again in the dining-room at Mablethorpe House.

The hospitable¹ table bears once more its burden of good things for lunch. But on this occasion Lady Janet sits alone. Her attention is divided between reading her newspaper and feeding her cat. The cat is a sleek² and splendid creature. He carries an erect³ tail. He rolls luxuriously⁴ on the soft carpet. He approaches his mistress in a series of coquettish curves. He smells with dainty hesitation⁵ at the choicest morsels⁶ that can be offered to him. The musical monotony of his purring falls soothingly⁷ on her ladyship’s ear. She stops in the middle of a leading article and looks with a careworn⁸ face at the happy cat. “Upon my honor,” cries Lady Janet, thinking, in her inveterately⁹ ironical¹⁰ manner, of the cares that trouble her, “all things considered, Tom, I wish I was You!”

The cat starts — not at his mistress’s complimentary¹¹ apostrophe, but at a knock at the door, which follows close upon it. Lady Janet says, carelessly enough, “Come in;” looks round listlessly to see who it is; and starts, like the cat, when the door opens and discloses — Julian Gray!

“You — or your ghost?” she exclaims.

She has noticed already that Julian is paler than usual, and that there is something in his manner at once uneasy and

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