Madame Sampiero's eyelids flickered, "Would you like to see him, child--our Chancton _jeune premier_?" and the ghost of a satirical smile hovered over the still face and quivering mouth. "Yes, indeed, Marraine, if it would not tire you! You know it was his sister who was so kind to me in Santa Maria. May I send for him now? He evidently wants to see you about something very important--" But McGregor, convinced that there would be no answer to the note he had most unwillingly conveyed upstairs, had not waited, as Barbara had expected to find, in the corridor. She hesitated a moment, then, gathering up her long brown skirts, ran down to the hall. Boringdon was walking up and down, waiting with dogged patience for the message which might, after all, not be sent to him. "Will you kindly come up--now--to Madame Sampiero? She is quite ready to see you!" To the young man the low, very clear voice, seemed at that moment the sweetest in the world: he turned round quickly and looked at the messenger with a good deal of curiosity. No thought that this elegant-looking girl could be Mrs. Rebell came to his mind. Doubtless she was one of the few people connected with Madame Sampiero's past life--perhaps one of the cousins who sometimes came to Chancton, and whom, occasionally, but very rarely as the years had gone on, the paralysed woman consented to receive. Rather bewildered at the ease with which the fortress had been stormed and taken, he followed the unknown young lady upstairs. But once in the corridor, when close to Madame Sampiero's door, Barbara stopped, and with heightened colour she said, "I know that you are Grace Johnstone's brother, I have been hoping the last few days to go and see your mother. Will you please tell her how much I look forward to meeting her?" And before he could make any answer, she whom Boringdon now knew to be Mrs. Rebell had opened the door, and was motioning him to precede her into the room into which he had not been allowed to come for two months. A moment later he stood at the foot of Madame Sampiero's couch, feeling the place in which he found himself curiously transformed, the atmosphere about him more human, less frigid than in those days when his weekly conferences with the owner of Chancton had been regarded by him with such discomfort and dread. The presence of the low table on which now lay a tea-tray and a bowl of freshly-gathered roses affected him agreeably, though he still quailed inwardly when his eyes met those of the paralysed woman stretched out before him: Boringdon was not imaginative, and yet these wide open blue eyes had often haunted him--to-day they rested on him kindly, and then looked beyond him, softening as they met those of her god-daughter.