"When I was a boy of thirteen or fourteen I remember her a brilliantly lovely young woman. That was before that scoundrel came in her way." When they entered the drawing-room Miss Spencer was sitting with her back to them, almost hidden in a deep armchair. The three girls were sitting or standing about her, all evidently much interested. "Here is papa, and our guest with him, Miss Spencer," said Mary. The little old woman came out of her chair with a sudden darting movement like that of a bird. Her gaze went from Mr. Graydon to the younger man. "Oh!" she cried. "Whom did you say?" She looked at the stranger for a moment with an agony of expectation in her yet bright eyes, while she fumbled nervously for the long-handled glasses at her side. When she had found them she peered at him through them; then dropped them, the expression of her face changing to indifference. "I beg your pardon, sir," she said. "I am expecting a friend, and for a moment I thought you were he." "How do you do, Miss Spencer?" broke in Mr. Graydon. "I see you have Stella under the barouche again. I'm glad she has recovered from her lameness." "The foot has come all right, thank you," said Miss Spencer, assuming quite an ordinary manner. "You weren't hunting to-day?" "No; I must wait till Glengall sets up his stables." "Ah, Glengall is coming home soon?" "He expects to reach Plymouth on the eighteenth. He will be at home for Christmas." "There'll be nothing in order for him in that old barrack of his." "He'll stay here while he's getting things straight. He is going to make a grand place of Glengall. He has plenty of money, and the heart to spend it, and the practical wit to direct it." "What will he do with it then? He has neither chick nor child." "There is always time, Miss Spencer." The slightly mad, brooding look came back to the little wizened white face. "Yes, of course, there is time," she said, dreamily. "I remember someone--who was it?--who knew Glengall when she was a young woman and he was a little boy. Glengall can't be old, of course, and any day people may return--mayn't they?" "Why, to be sure they may. Glengall did, though he was twenty years out of the reach of civilisation." "Oh, I wasn't thinking of Glengall. It was of someone much younger, someone about the age of that young gentleman there." Trevithick stood in the background and watched her with honest eyes of wonder and pity. She was smoothing the pink silk of her gown, while her eyes watched the fire as if she saw something very happy in it. Her skin was waxen white, and her features sharpened, but the brilliant eyes kept their beauty, and her little old hands, covered with rings, were delicately shaped. Her hair was half-white through the original black, and very oddly her pink bonnet, with its wreath of roses inside, sat on the streaked hair and over the white face. She had thrown off a large sable cloak on to the back of her chair.