"I hope I am not intruding," she said, in a voice as formal as his own. "Not at all. It was most kind of you to come. Pray sit down." She seated herself in silence, and then put up her veil. He remained standing, and for a moment or two the husband and wife looked each other steadily in the face, with a sort of curiosity and with a sort of wonder too. The years had not dealt unkindly with either of them. Lady Alice had kept her slender grace of figure and her gentleness of expression, but the traces of sorrow and anxiety were so visible upon her delicate face that Caspar felt a sudden impulse of pity towards the woman who had suffered in her loneliness more than he had perhaps thought possible. As she sat and looked at him, a certain pathetic quality showing itself with more than usual vividness in her soft eyes and drooping mouth, he was conscious of a desire to take her in his arms and console her for all the past. But he caught back the impulse with an inward laugh of scorn. She had no doubt come to run needles into him, as she used to do in those unlucky days of poverty and struggle. She had a knack of looking pretty and sweet while she was doing it, he remembered. It would not do to show any weakness now. And she--what did she think of him? She was less absorbed with the consideration of any change in him than with what she intended to say. What impressed her most were the inflections of his quiet, musical voice--a voice as unroughened and as gentle as when it wooed her in her father's Northern Castle years before! She had forgotten its power, but it made her tremble now from head to foot with a sort of terror that was not without charm. It was so cold a voice--so cold and calm! She felt that if it once grew tender and caressing her strength would fail her altogether. But there was not much fear of tenderness from him--to her. After that involuntary and rather awkward pause, Lady Alice recollected herself; and spoke first. "You must be very much surprised to see me?" "I am delighted, of course. I could wish"--with a slight smile--"that the apartment was more worthy of you, and that the circumstances were less disagreeable; but I am unfortunately not able to alter these details." "And it is exactly to these details that you owe my visit," said Lady Alice, with unexpected calmness. "Then I ought to be grateful them, no doubt." She moved uneasily, as if the studied conventionality of his tone jarred on her a little; and then she said, with an effort that made her words sound brusque, "I mean that under ordinary circumstances I should not have come to see you. But these are so strange--so extraordinary--that you will perhaps pardon the intrusion. I felt--on reflection--that it was only right for me to come--to express----" She faltered, and he took advantage of her hesitation to say, with a quiet smile--