Caley’s face, then, with its unsaintly illumination, gave Malcolm something to think about as he sat there upon Honour, the new horse. Clearly she had had a triumph: what could it be? The nature of the woman was not altogether unknown to him even from the first, and he could not for months go on meeting her occasionally in passages and on stairs without learning to understand his own instinctive dislike: it was plain the triumph was not in good. It was plain too that it was in something which had that very moment occurred, and could hardly have to do with anyone but her mistress. Then her being in that room revealed more. They would never have sent her out of the study, and so put themselves in her power. She had gone into the house but a moment before, a minute or two behind her mistress, and he knew with what a cat-like step she went about: she had surprised them---discovered how matters stood between her mistress and the painter! He saw everything--almost as it had taken place. She had seen without being seen, and had retreated with her prize! Florimel was then in the woman’s power: what was he to do? He must at least let her gather what warning she could from the tale of what he had seen. Once arrived at a resolve, Malcolm never lost time. They had turned but one corner on their way home, when he rode up to her. “Please, my lady,” he began. But the same instant Florimel was pulling up. “Malcolm,” she said, “I have left my pocket-handkerchief. I must go back for it.” As she spoke, she turned her horse’s head. But Malcolm, dreading lest Caley should yet be lingering, would not allow her to expose herself to a greater danger than she knew. “Before you go, my lady, I must tell you something I happened to see while I waited with the horses,” he said. The earnestness of his tone struck Florimel. She looked at him with eyes a little wider, and waited to hear. “I happened to look up at the drawing-room windows, my lady, and Caley came to one of them with _such_ a look on her face! I can’t exactly describe it to you, my lady, but----” “Why do you tell me?” interrupted his mistress, with absolute composure, and hard, questioning eyes. But she had drawn herself up in the saddle. Then, before he could reply, a flash of thought seemed to cross her face with a quick single motion of her eyebrows, and it was instantly altered and thoughtful. She seemed to have suddenly perceived some cause for taking a mild interest in his communication. “But it cannot be, Malcolm,” she said, in quite a changed tone. “You must have taken some one else for her. She never left the studio all the time I was there.” “It was immediately after her arrival, my lady. She went in about two minutes after your ladyship, and could not have had _much_ more than time to go upstairs when I saw her come to the window. I felt bound to tell your ladyship.”