"Perhaps not in general, Algy, but it looks like it in Mrs. Ludlow's case. All I can tell you is that the faint was perfectly genuine and particularly 'dead,' and that there was no cause for it, beyond the drive and the fatigue of looking over the photographs in that book. I am very tired of photographs myself, and I suppose most people are the same, but I haven't quite come to fainting over them yet." Algy Barford's stupefaction had quite a rousing effect on Lord Caterham, and Annie Maurice liked him and his odd ways more than ever. He made some trifling remark in reply to Caterham's speech, and took an early opportunity of minutely inspecting the photograph-book which he had mentioned. "So," said Algy to himself, as he walked slowly down St. Barnabas Square; "she goes to see Caterham, and faints at sight of dear old Lionel's portrait, does she? Ah, it's all coming out, Algy; and the best thing you can do, on the whole is to keep your own counsel,--that's about it, dear old boy!" CHAPTER XII. GATHERING CLOUDS. "My younger brother Lionel Brakespere;" those were Lord Caterham's words. Margaret had heard them distinctly before consciousness left her; there was no mistake, no confusion in her mind,--"my younger brother Lionel Brakespere." All unconsciously, then, she had been for months acquainted and in occasional communication with _his_ nearest relatives! Only that day she had been in the house where he had lived; had sat in a room all the associations of which were doubtless familiar to him; had gazed upon the portrait of that face for the sight of which her heart yearned with such a desperate restless longing! Lord Caterham's brother! Brother to that poor sickly cripple, in whom life's flame seemed not to shine, but to flicker merely,--her Lionel, so bright and active and handsome! Son of that proud, haughty Lady Beauport--yes, she could understand that; it was from his mother that he inherited the cool bearing, the easy assurance, the never-absent _hauteur_ which rendered him conspicuous even in a set of men where all these qualities were prized and imitated. She had not had the smallest suspicion the name she had known him by was assumed, or that he had an earl for his father and a viscount for his brother. He had been accustomed to speak of "the governor--a good old boy;" but his mother and his brother he never mentioned.