Stella smiled. "Has he committed many murders, uncle, burnt down many villages?" The old man started and looked up at the exquisite face, with its arch smile beaming in the dark eyes and curving the red, ripe lips, and smiled in response. "I was dreaming, Stella; an odd trick of mine. No, men of his stamp are sadly circumscribed nowadays. We have left them no vent for their natures now, excepting the gambling-table, the turf, and----" he roused suddenly. "Yes, it's a beautiful face, Stella, but it belongs to a man who has done more harm in his day than all his forefathers did before him. It is rather a good thing that Wyndward Hall stands so firmly, or else Leycester would have melted it at ecarte and baccarat long ago." "Is he so bad then?" murmured Stella. Her uncle smiled. "Bad is a mild word, Stella; and yet--look at the face again. I have seen it softened by a smile such as might have been worn by an innocent child; I have heard those lips laugh as--as women are supposed to laugh before this world has driven all laughter out of them; and when those eyes smile there is no resisting them for man or woman." He stopped suddenly and looked up. "I am wandering on like an old mill. Put the picture away, Stella." She took it from him and carried it across the room, but stood for a moment silently regarding it by the lamp light. As she did so, a strange fancy made her start and set the picture on the table suddenly. It seemed to her as if the dark eyes had suddenly softened in their intense fixed gaze and smiled at her. It was the trick of a warm, imaginative temperament, and it took possession of her so completely that with a swift gesture she laid her hand over the dark eyes and so hid them. Then, with a laugh at her own folly, she put the picture against the wall and went back to the window and sat beside the old man. "Tell me about your past life, Stella," he said, in a low voice. "It seems to me as if you had always been here. You have a quiet way of speaking and moving about, child." "I learnt that while papa was ill," she said, simply. "Sometimes he would sit for hours playing softly, and I did not wish to disturb him." "I remember, I remember," he murmured. "Stella, the world should have known something of him; he was a born musician." "He used to say the same of you, uncle; you should have been a famous artist." The old man looked up with a smile. "My child, there are many men whom the world knows nothing of--luckily for them. Your father and I were dreamers, both; the world likes men of action. Can you play?"