"Most of it is ugly and frowsy," she declared, "but it isn't worth talking about. I have made up my mind to insist upon moving from here into Park Lane, or one of the Squares. It is absolutely a frightful neighbourhood, this. If only you could see the people who have been to call on me! Sir John has the most absurd ideas, too. He won't have menservants inside the house, and his collection of carriages is only fit for a museum--where most of his friends ought to be, by-the-bye. I can assure you, Anna, it will take me years to get decently established. The man's as obstinate as a mule." Anna looked at her steadily. "He will find it difficult no doubt to alter his style of living," she said. "I do not blame him. I hope you will always remember----" Annabel held out her hands with a little cry of protest. "No lecturing, Anna!" she exclaimed. "I hope you have not come for that." "I came," Anna answered, looking her sister steadily in the face, "to hear all that you can tell me about a man named Hill." Annabel had been lying curled up on the lounge, the personification of graceful animal ease. At Anna's words she seemed suddenly to stiffen. Her softly intertwined fingers became rigid. The little spot of rouge was vivid enough now by reason of this new pallor, which seemed to draw the colour even from her lips. But she did not speak. She made no attempt to answer her sister's question. Anna looked at her curiously, and with sinking heart. "You must answer me, Annabel," she continued. "You must tell me the truth, please. It is necessary." Annabel rose slowly to her feet, walked to the door as though to see that it was shut, and came back with slow lagging footsteps. "There was a man called Montague Hill," she said hoarsely, "but he is dead." "Then there is also," Anna remarked, "a Montague Hill who is very much alive. Not only that, but he is here in London. I have just come from him." Annabel no longer attempted to conceal her emotion. She battled with a deadly faintness, and she tottered rather than walked back to her seat. Anna, quitting her chair, dropped on her knees by her sister's side and took her hand. "Do not be frightened, dear," she said. "You must tell me the truth, and I will see that no harm comes to you." "The only Montague Hill I ever knew," Annabel said slowly, "is dead. I know he is dead. I saw him lying on the footway. I felt his heart. It had ceased to beat. It was a motor accident--a fatal motor accident the evening papers called it. They could not have called it a fatal motor accident if he had not been dead." Anna nodded. "Yes, I remember," she said. "It was the night you left Paris. They thought that he was dead at first, and they took him to the hospital. I believe that his recovery was considered almost miraculous." "Alive," Annabel moaned, her eyes large with terror. "You say that he is alive."