A week had passed since Philippa’s departure from the villa before she entered it again, accompanied by her uncle, to spend the day with Princess Lida. Cyril’s presence had not been sought by his niece. In fact, poor Philippa, terrified lest she should be helping to involve him in the toils of the Princess of Dardania, had assured him plainly, almost rudely, that she preferred to go by herself. But Cyril could be singularly dense when he chose. He insisted that he had nothing particular to do, and could find no more delightful employment for an idle hour than escorting his niece to the villa. This assurance only confirmed Philippa’s fears, and the crowning touch was put to her misery by the message which awaited Cyril on his entrance, that the Princess would be glad to see him if he could spare her a few minutes. Philippa cast an imploring glance at him, but he smiled wickedly at the sight of her woe-begone face, and followed the servant sent to conduct him to the Princess’s boudoir. “Some dodge on hand,” he muttered to himself, when the man had left him with the announcement that her Royal Highness would receive him in a short time. “I wonder what it is? Ah!” His eye had been caught by an unfamiliar object in the room, a large portrait on an easel, carelessly draped with a gold and crimson scarf. It was turned away from him, and he went round the easel to look at it, only to recoil with a start which even his self-control could not restrain. The gay hues of the drapery served only to accentuate the utter desolation revealed by the photograph. A woman, dressed in white, was sitting listlessly upon a block of stone, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. The portrait revealed with cruel distinctness the grey hair, the lines in the worn face, and the unfathomable sorrow in the hopeless eyes. The Princess had given special directions that the reproduction was to be a faithful, not a flattering, one. “Good heavens!” broke from Cyril under his breath, “and this is Ernestine!” The wild rush of remorse and pity almost made him stagger, as he stood with clenched hands and compressed lip before the portrait; but it was succeeded by a vehement indignation against the woman who had deliberately prepared this miserable shock for him. “I showed you little mercy when last we met, dearest,” he muttered, addressing the pictured Ernestine; “but she shall have none.”