“Excellent Lionel,” she said, catching him with her small, burning fingers, “if friends are to help each other, they should be frank. But now I know your secret, I know where I am. As Heaven is good to me,” her laugh rang out again, “’tis not for the money; why, ’tis for love! You’re in love with the widow!” He looked at her for an instant as if he could have stabbed her willingly, but the next fell back into his cynic mood. “Congratulate yourself, then,” he retorted drily, “since I have all the more reason to have my way. But, pray you, here comes my grandam. She cares not for such loud mirth.” “Trust me,” she tittered. “I await but the ripe moment. The unmasking shall yet be played to your liking, and—” She faltered; into her eyes came the vagueness, into her voice the singular change, that once or twice already had aroused Ratcliffe’s attention. In a kind of toneless whisper, rapid and jerky, she added: “Unmask? Oh, yes, milord. No doubt—after supper!” Lionel fell back with a frown of dismay. The folding doors were thrown apart; two footmen entered, bearing candelabra which they deposited upon the centre card-table. There was an abrupt cessation of talk among the guests, and all turned in formal expectation of the venerable hostess’s entry. Into which stillness Lady Chillingburgh, seated very upright in her chair, was wheeled by a negro boy. III THE PLAGUE-CART Through the fantastic mists that circled in her brain to-night, now shrouding her faculties in gloom like the sinister fog that hung without, now shot as with many-coloured fires, Madame de Mantes gazed upon this extraordinary personality. Paralysed to the waist though the old lady was, a fierce vitality, an indomitable will, looked out of the sunken black eyes, spoke in the cavernous voice, imposed itself in the gesture of the shriveled hand. Here was one, in spite of age and infirmity, strong enough to bid defiance to universal calamity, to look Pestilence in the face, and choose to ignore it; who, in the midst of a terror akin to that of the scriptural last day—when the abomination of desolation seemed to have fallen upon the city, and he that was on the housetop might scarce come down to take anything out of his house—could still give her weekly card-party and find guests to obey the summons. As her chair was brought to a stand in the middle of the room, Lady Chillingburgh drew her eyebrows together and swept a slow, severe glance over the circle. “I was informed the company had assembled. How now! Are these all my guests?” There was a kind of apologetic stir, as if each person felt responsible for the paucity of the gathering. Then Rockhurst and the other men advanced and gravely paid their devoirs. Diana drew her grandmother’s chair to a more suitable position by the big card-table, and stood behind her, in attendance. Ratcliffe instantly proceeded to the introduction of the new guest. He was once more suave, to glibness:—