“Yes.” He was wondering much, behind the mask of his civility, what had drawn her hither. He knew that it could be no light, no passing matter which had brought her over thirteen miles of Wiltshire roads to call upon a man with whom intercourse had been limited, for years past, to a few annual words, a formal invitation as formally declined, a measured salutation at race or ball. She must have a motive, and a strong one. It was only the day before that he had learned that Lord Lansdowne meant to drop his foolish opposition at Chippinge; was it possible that she was here to make a favour of this? And perhaps a bargain? If that were her errand, and my lord had sent her, thinking to make refusal less easy, Sir Robert felt that he would know how to answer. He waited. VII THE WINDS OF AUTUMN Lady Lansdowne looked pensively at the tapering sandal which she held forward to catch the heat. “Time passes so very, very quickly,” she said with a sigh. “With some,” Sir Robert answered. “With others,” he bowed, “it stands still.” His gallantry did not deceive her. She knew it for the salute which duellists exchange before the fray, and she saw that if she would do anything she must place herself within his guard. She looked at him with sudden frankness. “I want you to bear with me for a few minutes, Sir Robert,” she said in a tone of appeal. “I want you to remember that we were once friends, and, for the sake of old days, to believe that I am here to play a friend’s part. You won’t answer me? Very well. I do not ask you to answer me.” She pointed to the space above the mantel. “The portrait which used to hang there?” she said. “Where is it? What have you done with it? But there, I said I would not ask, and I am asking!” “And I will answer!” he replied. This was the last, the very last thing for which he had looked; but he would show her that he was not to be overridden. “I will tell you,” he repeated. “Lady Lansdowne, I have destroyed it.” “I do not blame you,” she rejoined. “It was yours to do with as you would. But the original—no, Sir Robert,” she said, staying him intrepidly—she had taken the water now, and must swim—“you shall not frighten me! She was, she is your wife. But not yours, not your property to do with as you will, in the sense in which that picture—but there, I am blaming where I should entreat. I——” He stayed her by a peremptory gesture. “Are you here—from her?” he asked huskily. “I am not.” “She knows?” “No, Sir Robert, she does not.” “Then why,”—there was pain, real pain mingled with the indignation in his tone—“why, in God’s name, Madam, have you come?” She looked at him with pitying eyes. “Because,” she said, “so many years have passed, and if I do not say a word now I shall never say it. And because—there is still time, but no more than time.” He looked at her fixedly. “You have another reason,” he said. “What is it?”