“What have you found?” she asked at last. “A ghost,” he answered, and his voice had a strained, metallic ring. He even vented an odd laugh. “A bundle of old love-letters.” “From her ladyship?” “Her ladyship?” He looked up, an expression on his face which seemed to show that he could not at the moment think who her ladyship might be. Then as the picture of that bedaubed, bedizened and harsh-featured Jezebel arose in his mind to stand beside the sweet girl--image of his mother--as he knew her from the portrait that hung at Maligny--he laughed again. “No, not from her ladyship,” said he. “From a woman who loved him years ago.” And he turned to the seventh and last of those poor ghosts-the seventh, a fateful number. He spread it before him; frowned down on it a moment with a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. Then he twisted oddly on his chair, and sat bolt upright, staring straight before him with unseeing eyes. Presently he passed a hand across his brow, and made a queer sound in his throat. “What is it?” she asked. But he did not answer; he was staring at the paper again. A while he sat thus; then with swift fevered fingers he took up once more the other letters. He unfolded one, and began to read. A few lines he read, and then--“O God!” he cried, and flung out his arms under stress of 'his emotions. One of them caught the taper that stood upon the desk; and swept it, extinguished, to the floor. He never heeded it, never gave a thought to the purpose for which it had been fetched, a purpose not yet served. He rose. He was white as the dead are white, and she observed that he was trembling. He took up the bundle of old letters, and thrust them into an inside pocket of his coat. “What are you doing?” she cried, seeking at last to arouse him from the spell under which he appeared to have fallen. “Those letters--” “I must see Lord Ostermore,” he answered wildly, and made for the door, reeling like a drunkard in his walk. CHAPTER XIX. THE END OF LORD OSTERMORE In the ante-room communicating with Lord Ostermore's bedroom the countess was in consultation with Rotherby, who had been summoned by his mother when my lord was stricken.