"I don't know," she repeated, returning, suddenly, from that vision of

the past. "It was someone I met, saw, for a short time----"

"But his name?" said the Marquess, with a subdued impatience.

"That I don't know," Celia replied, raising her eyes, in which the

Marquess could not fail to read truth and honesty. "I saw him once only,

and for a short time, and then--then he passed out of my life. I mean,

that I did not see him again; that it is unlikely I shall ever see him

again."

"Where was this--this meeting of which you speak?" inquired the

Marquess, in a conversational tone. "Pardon me if I seem intrusive--it

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is your affair and yours only--but you have excited my curiosity. The

portrait is that of my brother."

"I know," said Celia. "I do not mind your asking me; but I cannot tell

you. What passed between me and him----" She stopped; she was on

delicate ground; this man, with his worldly experience, his acute

intelligence, might lead her on to disclose what had happened that

night; she could not cope with him. "I do not know his name."

The Marquess bowed his head, and smiled slightly, as if he scented the

aroma of a commonplace romance.

"Quite so," he said. "A casual meeting. Such occurs occasionally in the

course of one's life, and I dare say the resemblance you noticed was

only a fancied one. It must have been," he added, looking on the ground,

and speaking in an absent way; "for as it happens, my brother"--he

nodded towards the portrait--"was unmarried, had no relations other than

myself and my son." He turned away to the fire again. "Oh, yes; only a

fancied one. Good night."

This was a definite dismissal, and Celia, murmuring, "Good night, my

lord," went up the stairs. At the bend of the corridor she glanced down

involuntarily. The Marquess had turned from the fire again, and was

looking, with bent brows, at the portrait.




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