Her voice was a little faint and plaintive yet, from the numbing of the cold, but it had a grave ring in it that fell pleasantly on Rockhurst’s fastidious ear. “Another taste, madam; we will inquire about your servants anon. The mistress must first be waited upon,” cried young Paul, all agog in ostentatious attendance, and ever flinging a restless glance of inquiry at his Rockhurst. “Fie! Your cloak is heavy with wet. Let me move these dripping folds away from you. And your feet, oh, I protest!” He was down on his knees now, his young head glinting in the glow as he bent assiduously over his new task. “Your feet—ice!” Even as he spoke, he drew the little doeskin shoe from her foot; and, as she instinctively lifted it toward the blaze, knelt back so that Rockhurst might see the firelight play upon its delicate shape. The warmth of the wine and of the hearth had stirred her chilled blood. A flush, like the tint of a seashell, crept into her face; into her dazed eyes appeared a light to which the blue shadows of weariness on the lids gave a singular brilliancy; she very simply stretched her other foot for the kindly office. As Farrant rose at last, with the second shoe dangling in his hand, his exultation broke out. He drew close, and whispered:— “Say, my lord, shall we not be right well entertained to-night?” “We?” echoed Rockhurst, aloud. The single contemptuous exclamation fell like the cut of a whip. He turned, and bowing to the visitor, who had turned startled eyes toward him:— “Madam,” he said, “I heard you express some anxiety about your attendants. Our young friend is about to fulfil your request … whatever it may be.—Go,” added he, turning upon the disconcerted youth. And as Farrant hesitated he took a swift step nearer to him, and whispered in his turn, “Go—to the devil or where you will, so long as it is out of this!” His eye commanded more insolently yet than his words. The young man fell back, flung a look of hesitation toward the crumpled notes on the table; another glance at the lady, his fair treasure-trove. Then, with a meaning smile, he bowed profoundly, so that all his shining curls fell over his face, and withdrew. Rockhurst caught the smile and the look; and the memory of a dead face, that of his old brother in arms, the boy’s father, in its last stern serenity rose up before him. His own eyes were hard as he looked again upon the woman who had been found so promptly willing to come and relieve the tedium of his snow-bound evening. [Illustration: The single contemptuous exclamation fell like the cut of a whip.]