With that the Countess kissed her niece and left the room in a flutter of golden embroideries. She was as gay, in her delicate lady's way, as Rose, and as extravagant. Susannah sometimes wondered what the dowager Lady Lyndwood would do if the money failed, and she thought she could guess. The Countess had the light way of taking things that would allow her to marry again, and still remain true to the one passion and tragedy of her life--the love and death of the Earl. Miss Chressham went to the window and watched the Countess, by the light of the link-boys' torches, being handed into the coach by Lord Willouby, who had been waiting for her patiently in the great empty drawing-room below. Susannah saw them drive off, then let the curtains fall. She felt sad yet excited at a tension not to be explained. Everything had ended more quietly than she could have expected, yet she felt as if on the verge of great events. Rose had met Sir Francis, and nothing had happened. The _Gazette_ scandal appeared to have blown over; there had been no word from Selina Boyle since last night. Marius had taken his answer quietly. She was sorry he had left them, frankly regretting his company, but she respected his motives, one of which she suspected to be the desire to avoid the Countess Lavinia, who could no longer, with any shadow of a decent excuse, seek him out for her amusement. Poor Marius! Susannah thought of him with tenderness. He had behaved very well; he had finer stuff in him than had Rose, but---- Her reflections touched the state of the Earl's fortunes. She told herself that it must be this casting a gloom over her spirits. He would say so little, and that little a sneer, or mocking. He acted on such sudden desperate impulses, as in the matter of his marriage. Never had he been frank with her, and she, sensitive to his reserve, had equally never been able to bring herself to probe into his affairs. She knew that he must be entangled in debt. She feared a sudden downfall of his fortunes, but she knew--with certainty--nothing. She sat down at the spinet and played a little madrigal by Orlando Gibbons that was associated with her earliest childhood. When her fingers fell still her hands dropped into her lap, and she sat motionless, staring across the gorgeous chamber. The mirror behind her reflected her slender figure in the tight lilac silk, the loops of soft brown hair falling over the muslin fichu and the faint coloured keys of the spinet. Her reverie was disturbed by the entry of my lady's black page; she thought he came to announce Marius, and her heart fluttered. But it was a lady who desired to be admitted. She said she came from Lyndwood House, and the page thought her the maid of the younger Countess. Susannah paled with anger and distaste. What impertinence was this on the part of the odious Honoria Pryse? "My lady is at Ranelagh," she said. "I suppose this person hath come to see her." "No, madam; she asked for you."