it hard to say. Perhaps the Genius that lies under the consciousness forefelt a catastrophe, and urged him to give his gift ere giving should be impossible. Malcolm stepped into the drawing-room, where the table was laid as usual for breakfast: there stood Caley, helping herself to a spoonful of honey from Hymettus. At his entrance she started violently, and her sallow face grew earthy. For some seconds she stood motionless, unable to take her eyes off the apparition, as it seemed to her, of the late marquis, in wrath at her encouragement of his daughter in disgraceful courses. Malcolm, supposing only she was ashamed of herself, took no farther notice of her, and walked deliberately towards the other door. Ere he reached it she knew him. Burning with the combined ires of fright and shame, conscious also that, by the one little contemptible act of greed in which he had surprised her, she had justified the aversion which her woman-instinct had from the first recognized in him, she darted to the door, stood with her back against it, and faced him flaming. “So!” she cried, “this is how my lady’s kindness is abused! The insolence! Her groom goes and sits for his portrait in her father’s court dress!” As she ceased, all the latent vulgarity of her nature broke loose, and with a contracted _pff_ she seized her thin nose between her thumb and fore-finger, to the indication that an evil odour of fish interpenetrated her atmosphere, and must at the moment be defiling the garments of the dead marquis. “My lady shall know of this,” she concluded, with a vicious clenching of her teeth, and two or three nods of her neat head. Malcolm stood regarding her with a coolness that yet inflamed her wrath. He could not help smiling at the reaction of shame in indignation. Had her anger been but a passing flame, that smile would have turned it into enduring hate. She hissed in his face. “Go and have the first word,” he said; “only leave the door and let me pass.” “Let you pass indeed! What would you pass for?--The bastard of old Lord James and a married woman!--I don’t care _that_ for you.” And she snapped her fingers in his face. Malcolm turned from her and went to the window, taking a newspaper from the breakfast-table as he passed, and there sat down to read until the way should be clear. Carried beyond herself by his utter indifference, Caley darted from the room and went straight into the study. Lenorme led Florimel in front of the picture. She gave a great start, and turned and stared pallid at the painter. The effect upon her was such as he had not foreseen, and the words she uttered were not such as he could have hoped to hear. “What would _he_ think of me if he knew?” she cried, clasping her hands in agony. That moment Caley burst into the room, her eyes lamping like a cat’s.