How marvelously easy of accomplishment the act of personation had been! At first sight Lady Janet had yielded to the fascination of the noble and interesting face. No need to present the stolen letter; no need to repeat the ready-made story. The old lady had put the letter aside unopened, and had stopped the story at the first words. “Your face is your introduction, my dear; your father can say nothing for you which you have not already said for yourself.” There was the welcome which established her firmly in her false identity at the outset. Thanks to her own experience, and thanks to the “Journal” of events at Rome, questions about her life in Canada and questions about Colonel Roseberry’s illness found her ready with answers which (even if suspicion had existed) would have disarmed suspicion on the spot. While the true Grace was slowly and painfully winning her way back to life on her bed in a German hospital, the false Grace was presented to Lady Janet’s friends as the relative by marriage of the Mistress of Mablethorpe House. From that time forward nothing had happened to rouse in her the faintest suspicion that Grace Roseberry was other than a dead-and-buried woman. So far as she now knew--so far as any one now knew--she might live out her life in perfect security (if her conscience would let her), respected, distinguished, and beloved, in the position which she had usurped. She rose abruptly from the table. The effort of her life was to shake herself free of the remembrances which haunted her perpetually as they were haunting her now. Her memory was her worst enemy; her one refuge from it was in change of occupation and change of scene. “May I go into the conservatory, Lady Janet?” she asked. “Certainly, my dear.” She bent her head to her protectress, looked for a moment with a steady, compassionate attention at Horace Holmcroft, and, slowly crossing the room, entered the winter-garden. The eyes of Horace followed her, as long as she was in view, with a curious contradictory expression of admiration and disapproval. When she had passed out of sight the admiration vanished, but the disapproval remained. The face of the young man contracted into a frown: he sat silent, with his fork in his hand, playing absently with the fragments on his plate. “Take some French pie, Horace,” said Lady Janet. “No, thank you.” “Some more chicken, then?” “No more chicken.” “Will nothing tempt you?” “I will take some more wine, if you will allow me.” He filled his glass (for the fifth or sixth time) with claret, and emptied it sullenly at a draught. Lady Janet’s bright eyes watched him with sardonic attention; Lady Janet’s ready tongue spoke out as freely as usual what was passing in her mind at the time.