About five years passed away since the events narrated in the last chapter. The General's household had left their London lodgings not long after Guy's visit, and had removed to the family seat at Pomeroy Court, where they had remained ever since. During these years Guy had been living the life common with young officers, moving about from place to place, going sometimes on a visit to his father, and, on the whole, extracting an uncommonly large amount of enjoyment out of life. The memory of his betrothal never troubled him; he fortunately escaped any affair of the heart more serious than an idle flirtation in a garrison town; the odd scene of his visit to General Pomeroy's lodgings soon faded into the remote past; and the projected marriage was banished in his mind to the dim shades of a remote future. As for the two old men, they only met once or twice in all these years. General Pomeroy could not manage very well to leave his daughter, and Lord Chetwynde's health did not allow him to visit Pomeroy. He often urged the General to bring Zillah with him to Chetwynde Castle, but this the young lady positively refused to consent to. Nor did the General himself care particularly about taking her there. Pomeroy Court was a fine old mansion, with no pretensions to grandeur, but full of that solid comfort which characterizes so many country houses of England. It was irregular in shape, and belonged to different periods; the main building being Elizabethan, from which there projected an addition in that stiff Dutch style which William and Mary introduced. A wide, well-timbered park surrounded it, beyond which lay the village of Pomeroy. One morning in June, 1856, a man came up the avenue and entered the hall. He was of medium size, with short light hair, low brow, light eyes, and thin face, and he carried a scroll of music in his hand. He entered the hall with the air of an habitué, and proceeded to the south parlor. Here his attention was at once arrested by a figure standing by one of the windows. It was a young girl, slender and graceful in form, dressed in black, with masses of heavy black hair coiled up behind her head. Her back was turned toward him, and he stood in silence for some time looking toward her. At last he spoke: "Miss Krieff--" The one called Miss Krieff turned and said, in an indifferent monotone: "Good-morning, Mr. Gualtier." Turning thus she showed a face which had in it nothing whatever of the English type--a dark olive complexion, almost swarthy, in fact; thick, luxuriant black hair, eyes intensely black and piercingly lustrous, retreating chin, and retreating narrow forehead. In that face, with its intense eyes, there was the possibility of rare charm and fascination, and beauty of a very unusual kind; but at the present moment, as she looked carelessly and almost sullenly at her visitor, there was something repellent. "Where is Miss Pomeroy?" asked Gualtier. "About, somewhere," answered Miss Krieff, shortly.