“Then there is some one else!” cried Arthur, with an apparent irrelevance. “I know there is some one else.” Dora seemed to be reflecting. She looked over his head, out of the window, where the fleecy summer clouds floated idly over the sky. She turned and looked deliberately at the door by which Mrs. Agar had disappeared. It was standing ajar. Then again she reflected, weighing something in her mind. “Yes,” she replied half-dreamily at length. “I think you have a right to know--there is some one else.” “Was,” corrected Arthur, with the womanly intuition which was given to him with other womanly traits. “Was and is,” replied Dora quietly. “His being dead makes no difference so far as you are concerned.” “Then it _was_ Jem! I was sure it was Jem,” said a third voice. In the excitement of the moment Mrs. Agar forgot that when ladies and gentlemen stoop to eavesdropping they generally retire discreetly and return after a few moments, humming a tune, hymns preferred. “I knew that you were there,” said Dora, with a calmness which was not pleasant to the ear. “I saw your black dress through the crack of the door. You did not stand quite still, which was a pity, because the sunlight was on the floor behind you. I was not surprised; it was worthy of you.” “I take God to witness,” cried Mrs. Agar, “that I only heard the last words as I came back into the room.” “Don't,” said Dora, “that is blasphemy.” “Arthur,” cried Mrs. Agar, “will you hear your mother called names?” “We will not wrangle,” said Dora, rising with something very like a smile on her face. “Yes, if you want to know, it _was_ Jem. I have only his memory, but still I can be faithful to that. I don't care if all the world knows; that is why I told _you_ behind the door. I am not ashamed of it. I always did care for Jem.” There was a little pause, for mother and son had nothing to answer. Dora turned to take her gloves, which she had laid on a side table, and as she did so the other door opened, the principal door leading to the hall. Moreover, it was opened without the menial pause, and they all turned in surprise, knowing that there were only servants in the house. In the doorway stood Jem, brown-faced, lean, and anxious-looking. There was something wolf-like in his face, with the fierce blue eyes shining from beneath dark lashes, the fair moustache pushed forward by set lips. Behind him the keen face of Seymour Michael peered nervously, restlessly from side to side. He was distinctly suggestive of a rat in a trap. And beyond him, in the gloom of the old arras-hung hall, a third man, seemingly standing guard over Seymour Michael, for he was not looking into the room but watching every movement made by the General--tall man, dark, upright, with a silent, clean-shaven face, a total stranger to them all. But his manner was not that of a stranger, he seemed to have something to do there. CHAPTER XXVIII THE LAST LINK A thing hereditary in the race comes unawares.