‘How strange it is! I feel as if I should never look upon the sea again! I am growing morbid, I suppose, but to my fancy the waves are saying, “Good-bye, Delicia! Good-bye for ever, and still good-bye!” like Tosti’s old song!’ She stood silent for a little while, then turned and went homeward, resolutely battling with the curious foreboding that had suddenly oppressed her brain and heart. Spartan, shaking the wet spray from his shaggy coat, trotted by her side in the highest spirits; he was untroubled by any presentiments; he lived for the moment and enjoyed it thoroughly—a habit of mind common to all animals except man. The next day she returned to London and entered her own house with her usual quiet and unruffled air. She looked well, even happy; and Robson, who opened the door for her admittance, began to think he was wrong after all, and that she ‘knew’ nothing. ‘Is Lord Carlyon in?’ she asked, with the civil coldness of a visitor rather than of a wife. ‘No, my lady.’ Here Robson hesitated, then finally spoke out. ‘His lordship has not been home for some days.’ Delicia looked at him steadily, and Robson stammered on, giving her more information. ‘Since the grand dinner his lordship gave here last week, he has only called in for his letters; he has been staying with friends.’ Delicia glanced around her at the picturesque hall with its heraldic emblems, stained-glass windows and rare old oak furniture, all of which she had collected herself and arranged with the taste of a perfect artist, and a faint chill crept over her as she thought that perhaps even her home—the home she had built and planned and made beautiful out of the work of her own brain—had been desecrated by the company of her husband’s ‘private friends.’ ‘Was it a very grand dinner, Robson?’ she asked, forcing a smile, ‘Or did you all get into a muddle and do things badly?’ ‘Well, my lady, we had very little to do with it,’ answered Robson, now gaining sufficient courage to pour out his suppressed complaints. ‘His lordship ordered all the dinner himself from Benoist, and sent cook and some of the other servants out for the day. They wasn’t best pleased about it, my lady. I stayed to help in the waiting. It was a very queer party indeed, but of course it isn’t my business to say anything—’ ‘Go on,’ said Delicia, quietly. ‘What people dined here? Do I know any of them?’ ‘Not that I am aware of, my lady,’ said Robson, with an injured air. ‘I should say it wasn’t at all likely you knew any of them; they were very loud in their ways, very loud indeed. Two of the females—I beg pardon—ladies, stayed to sleep—one young one, and one old.’ Trembling from head to foot, Delicia managed still to restrain herself and to speak quietly,— ‘Did you know their names?’ ‘Oh, yes, my lady—Madame de Gascon and her daughter, Miss de Gascon. Their names are French, but they spoke a sort of costermonger’s English.’ ‘Did any of them go into my study?’