She beckoned Cylmer close to her with a little backward motion of her head. “Make it up with mother,” she said under her breath, Cylmer’s broad shoulders shielding her from the others. “She will never really forgive you, but she will pretend to.” Cylmer nodded. “And you?” he said uncomfortably. Ismay’s eyes met his, and for once they were true. “I am going to take care of Cristiane.” She little knew of all she meant when she spoke; of the days of watching, the nights of fear; but long after Miles Cylmer, remembering this day, knew that in her fashion she had kept her word. CHAPTER XIV. MORE TREACHERY. “Do you think I should have a crape veil?” Mother and daughter sat alone in the comfortable sitting-room that was Ismay’s own, when a week had passed after the reading of the will and their security was no longer a matter for ceaseless, exulting discussion. Around both of them lay a wild confusion of dressmakers’ patterns, bits of black stuff of all sorts, sketches of gowns which had been, till now, only dreams of Ismay Trelane. Yet she pushed them suddenly off her lap and yawned listlessly. A whole week had gone by without a sign of Cylmer; and yet she knew he had patched up a hollow truce with her mother. “Oh, I wish I knew if he were in love with Cristiane,” she mused moodily. “I could do more.” “Do listen, Ismay, and don’t look so sulky!” Mrs. Trelane said smartly. “Do you think I had better have a crape veil or plain net?” “Crape. It hides your face more!”--with unpleasant significance. “Ugh! How I hate mourning. Mother, where is Cristiane?” “Where she always is; sitting moaning in that library,” was the answer. “She is so deathly in her plain black serge she makes me cold. And she won’t talk of anything but her father’s grave, and how we must go to Rome in the spring. I never heard of such nonsense as having him moved there. As if he knew where he was buried!” “I don’t know that I would have dug him up, either,” said Ismay; “but don’t, for Heaven’s sake, say so.” A faint, far-off sound, which might have been the clang of the door-bell down-stairs, reached her as she spoke. Mrs. Trelane, not nearly so quick-eared, went on gloating over the vision of a soft black silk gown, that should glitter with jet, all veiled with cloudy crape. She did not see Ismay stiffen in her chair. “It must be tea-time,” she suggested absently. “Perhaps you had better go and find Cristiane.” “Perhaps I had.” Life in her eyes, the blood scarlet in her lips, Ismay was up like a flash. It had been the door-bell; she had heard the great hall door close dully in the silent house. And a visitor could be none other than Miles Cylmer. Every drop of her blood ached to see him, and there was another reason that hurried her through the passages. Miles must not be allowed to see Cristiane while that scribbled card of his reposed in Ismay’s pocket. His hand had written it, and Ismay Trelane had lacked strength to burn the dangerous thing.