“What Marchant held let Marchant hold!” she read aloud from the seal. “Well, half of me is Le Marchant, and the other half ‘born adventuress’! I feel sorry--really sorry--for Sir Gaspard.” And she slipped gracefully to the floor, and went after her mother. But in the hall a knock and ring at their front door made her run noiselessly to the bedroom, where Mrs. Trelane was putting on her bonnet. “He’s here,” Ismay cried; “it must be he; for it’s twelve o’clock, and it’s Friday! You’ll have to go and let him in, I can’t.” “No, you can’t! Don’t you come near us,” said her mother, with quick insistence, “unless I call you. Mind--for you might spoil everything! And when I do call you, come in a decent frock, with a plain linen collar, and behave yourself. Don’t make eyes at him whatever you do, and be affectionate to me. Remember, now!” And she was gone to open the door for the man who was to change the very face of the world for her. Miss Ismay Trelane, left alone, made a face. “Where does she think I’m going to get a clean collar when the washerwoman has clawed them all till she’s paid? And I won’t get dressed for a minute.” Lithe and slim she moved, without a sound, to a door that opened into the drawing-room, and, noiselessly setting it ajar, listened with all her ears. When she crept away her eyes were blazing. “It means plenty of money, and getting away from here to where Marcus Wray will never think of looking for us!” she exulted, as she began to change her dressing-gown for her only dress; but a sudden thought dashed her joy. To leave London would mean never to see again the man whose face had never left her memory since that night at the Palace Theater. “Why didn’t I let him tell me his name?” she thought, as she stamped with impotent rage at her own folly. CHAPTER VII. THREEFOLD DANGER. “Mrs. Trelane is father’s second cousin; and she and her daughter are coming here for a visit; daddy has to go away, and he can’t take me, and he won’t leave me alone.” Cristiane le Marchant leaned against the stem of a huge beech-tree that overhung the broad lake at Marchant’s Hold. The sunlight came through the leafless trees, and made the golden-red of her hair ruddier and more glorious in contrast; her cheeks had a soft rose that melted into creamy whiteness, and her eyes were very dark. Mr. Cylmer looked at her. She was certainly provokingly cool. “What are they like?” she asked curiously. “It doesn’t matter; they are a nuisance in any case,” said her companion. “Why?” she asked, but did not look at him. “You never had a chaperon before,” he said dryly. “Oh! your father, I know, but a woman’s--different. I know she’ll be in the way.” “In your way, Mr. Cylmer!” retorted Miss Le Marchant demurely, but her eyes flashed mischievously at him through her heavy lashes. “Mr. Cylmer” kicked at the turf with vicious energy.