When talking over future arrangements with his prospective wife, he had given Miss Ormsby clearly to understand that his marriage was to alter nothing so far as his half sister was concerned. Anna's home, as heretofore, would still be at the Towers, and the special suite of rooms in the left wing still be reserved for the occupancy of herself and Mrs. Jenwyn at certain seasons. CHAPTER V. IN THE LEFT WING. And now to revert to Mr. Drelincourt's visit to the left wing of the Towers on the day his wife came by her tragic end. His first question, in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenwyn, after the baize covered door had been locked behind him, was: "You have heard the news?" "I have, sir, and I need not tell you what a dreadful shock it was to me. Poor lady! Poor unhappy lady!" Drelincourt bit his lip for a moment. Then, "You have not breathed a word about it to Anna?" He had taken a chair, after motioning Mrs. Jenwyn to another. "Certainly not, sir. I should not dream of doing so without your permission. Indeed, I am far from sure that just now it would be advisable to say anything to her about it." "My own opinion exactly. The news must be kept carefully from her while she is as she is. It will be time enough to break it to her when she is herself again. Of course, her present attack has not yet run its course?" "Oh, no, sir; it is only five days since she was taken. We may calculate on another week at the least." "So much the better. By that time the funeral and other matters will be over and done with." Drelincourt sat for a few moments without speaking, toying with his watch-guard. Mrs. Jenwyn knew better than to break the silence. At this time, judging from appearances, she was somewhere about forty years of age. Her features were regular and refined, and she would still have been accounted a very handsome woman but for the abnormal pallor of her complexion, her sunken cheeks, and a certain worn and tired look about her keenly watchful eyes, with their slightly contracted lids, which might be the result of insomnia. Like her hair, her eyes were of a brown so dark as in some lights to be hardly distinguishable from black. Although her face was essentially feminine in certain of its aspects, its dominant expression was one of innate resolution, and of an amount of will power rather unusual in one of her sex. "A woman of great force of character, who would do and dare much to gain her ends, whatever they might be," was Mr. Drelincourt's pithy summing up of her. For all that, there must have been a sunny corner hidden somewhere under the husk of her almost frozen reserve, or Anna Drelincourt--so susceptible to chills of every kind--would not have learned to love her and cling to her as she did. Scarcely less dear had Anna's mother held her.