Her eyes, roving round the room, took in every detail. Two old-fashioned wardrobes, a battalion of boots, a bear-skin and two tiger-skins spread on the floor, a couch, a small brass-bound chest of drawers, and a few chairs. Over the chimney-piece hung his sabre, surmounting a fantastic arrangement of whips and pipes; the chimney-board itself bristled with spurs. Above the sabre, spurs, and whips was a small half-height portrait of his mother, evidently copied from one in the dining-room--a lovely dark-eyed girl, in a white satin dress and fur cloak. Alice stood before the picture for a long time. Reginald had his mother’s eyes, only that his had not such a soft expression. Yes, certainly his eyes were like his mother’s. “And what is it to me?” she thought with a sudden pang. “What would his mother think of him if she could but know?” she said half aloud, fixing her eyes on the picture as if expecting an answer from those sweet red lips. “What would _my_ mother think if she knew all?” she said, burying her face in her hands. Then suddenly raising her eyes, she looked once more round the room and walked to the door. “Good-bye,” she said aloud. “Good-bye, the Reginald Fairfax I loved, that was everything to me in the wide world. Good-bye,” she repeated, softly shutting the door. “As for the man who is coming to-morrow, he is nothing to me; he is--oh, shameful, shameful thought!--another woman’s husband!” and throwing herself on her knees beside her bed, she sobbed as if her heart would break. After a while she rose more composed, dried her eyes, stifled her long-drawn sobs with an enormous effort, and said to herself aloud: “I have done with tears; I have done with weakness; I have done with _Alice Fairfax_!” CHAPTER VI. “A WELCOME HOME.” Endued in a decent semblance of composure, but pale and hollow-eyed, Alice came downstairs the following evening in time to receive her husband. She, and Miss Fane, and Geoffrey were sitting in the drawing-room, silent and constrained: Miss Fane bolt upright and knitting aggressively; Geoffrey making a feint of reading _The Field_, but in fact merely turning over the paper aimlessly from page to page, and surreptitiously watching Alice above its margin; Alice, with her hands clasped listlessly before her, making no pretence of any employment, but staring intently into the fire with a hard, defiant expression on her face. Suddenly a loud ring, and a sound of footsteps and cheerful voices in the hall, announced the return of the master of the house. Sir Reginald entered, looking radiant. “You hardly expected me so soon, did you?” he said, greeting his relations in turn. “I travelled straight through without stopping, except for a couple of hours in Paris. I have brought you the most lovely Christmas-box you ever saw!” he said, turning to Alice.