She sipped a little, but her hands shook so much that I had to hold the glass for her. "Cheero, old girl," said Ted, patting her cheek, but Essie did not cheero. "The lady ought to lie down," said the old woman who had opened the door to us. "There's a sofy in the morning-room." I supported Essie into an octagonal room leading out of the great hall, and laid her on a spacious divan of dim red damask. "Leave her alone with me for a bit," I said to Ted. "She is overwrought. We made a very early start." "I seem to have gone blind," she whispered when Ted had departed. "Everything is black." "You turned faint. You will be all right in a few minutes." "Shall I? Would you mind telling me, Beatrice, is there--is there a picture over the fireplace?" "Yes." "What kind of picture?" "It is a life-size portrait of a young cavalier with curls, in blue satin, holding his hat in his hand." "I knew it," she groaned. There was a long silence. "I can't bear it," she said. "You may say that is silly, Beatrice, but all the same I can't. My life will break in two. If Ted lives here--I shall have nowhere to go." "I don't think it silly, dear, but I don't understand. This is your old home where you lived nearly three hundred years ago, and to which you have so often come back in your dreams. Now you are coming back to it as your home once more. It seems to me a beautiful and romantic thing to have happened, and after the first surprise surely it must seem the same to you. You have always been so happy here." "I can see a little now," she said. "Where is the glass of water?" She sat up and drank a little, and then dabbed some of the water on her forehead. "I'm all right now," she said, pushing back her wet hair. "Don't move. Rest a little; you have had a shock." She did not seem to hear me. She rose slowly to her feet, and stood in front of the picture. "Yes," she said to the cavalier. "It's you, only not quite you either. You are not really as handsome as that you know, and you have a firmer mouth and darker brows." The cavalier smiled at her from the wall: a somewhat insipid supercilious face I thought, but a wonderful portrait. The old caretaker came back. "The gentleman said you'd be the better for something to eat," she said, "and that you would take it in the hall." Through the open door I saw the chauffeur unstrapping the baskets from Fortnum and Mason. "Whose portrait is that?" said Essie. "Henry Vavasour Kenstone," said the old woman in a parrot voice. "Equerry to our martyred King, by Vandyck. You will observe the jewelled sword and the gloves sewed with pearls. The sword and the gloves are preserved in the banqueting 'all in a glass case." Essie turned away from the picture, and sat down feebly by the window. The clinking of plates, and Ted's cheerful voice reached us, and the drawing of a cork.