'Oh for some news--news of how it all came about! If Allan would only write to me--or to Olive; he surely will tell her. This is more than I can bear!' and interlacing her slender white fingers--a way she had contracted now when alone--she pressed them with palms outward, against her throbbing forehead, as if she meant to break them. Alas! she was to learn too soon tidings of another dire calamity, and _why_ Allan was unable to write to any one. There was no trace of all this deep emotion in her soft face when she descended to the drawing-room, with a velvet dress of that blue which so suited her pale complexion, cut square at the neck, and having elbow sleeves with lace, and rich mosaics set in gold clasping her white neck, and exquisitely rounded arms that were so white and taper. There could be no two opinions about her rare beauty, and Sir Harry Hurdell and his fast friend--fast in more ways than one--both acknowledged it at a glance, as their sharp and critical eyes took in every detail of her witching face, her rounded girlish cheek, her sweetly curved mouth, with its short upper lip, her nose and delicate nostrils. Sir Harry Hurdell was very sceptical of the purity of all women. He would not have believed in that of his own mother had she been alive; so he was perhaps to be pardoned for deeming that Lady Puddicombe 'was just like the rest,' whatever that might mean. He was intensely gratified and glad that the girl was so young and lovely, and that her husband was so old and so common-place: thus he resolved, in his own phraseology, 'to enter stakes for the filly--to make his innings if he could, or the devil was in it!' CHAPTER VIII. SIR HARRY. There was an air of lassitude, of settled melancholy, and at times of abstraction, apparent about Eveline, which she could not always successfully conceal, that did not fail to impress and surprise the baronet of Hurdell Hall and his sister, and the latter observed her narrowly when they were together in the drawing-room. 'I have heard that you sing beautifully, Lady Puddicombe,' said she, opening the piano. 'I used to sing--a little,' replied Eveline. 'Used to sing! Why drop so charming an accomplishment?' 'I have had thoughts of late that make me sad.' 'We must cure you of all that. What style of music do you love most?' 'I love all music that is beautiful.' 'And songs?' 'That are melancholy.' 'Then sing me some favourite thing before the gentlemen join us--there is a dear, do.' Thus urged, and fearing to appear ungracious, Eveline seated herself before the instrument--a grand and very stately one it was, and began to sing in a voice that became tender, passionate, and beautiful, touching; even the somewhat arid heart of her listener--by two of the verses especially:-- 'Perchance, if we had never met, I had been spared this mad regret, This endless striving to forget, For ever and for ever! . . . . . .