Even though the House stood prorogued for yet another ten days, formidable packets of documents continually reached Dudley Chisholm from the Foreign Office, sometimes through the post, and at others by special messenger. England's relations with the Powers were, as usual, not very reassuring, hence the Parliamentary Under-Secretary was kept busy, and every moment he could snatch from his guests was spent in the library among the heaps of papers with which his table was always littered. Wrey, his private secretary, was absent on leave, for the holidays, and, therefore, the whole of the work fell upon him. Each night, after the men had finished their whiskey and their gossip in the smoking-room, he would retire to the big, book-lined chamber, and plunge into the work, often difficult and tedious, which the nation expected of him. Usually during the half hour before dinner some of the guests would assemble in the great, brown, old room to gossip, and the cosy-corner beside the big wood fire was a favourite resting-place of Muriel's. She generally dressed early, and with one or other of the younger men would sit there and chat until the dinner-bell sounded. The fine old chamber, with its overmantel bearing the three water-bougets argent, its lining of books, and its oaken ceiling was quiet and secluded from the rest of the house, the ideal refuge of a studious man. Dudley, having occasion to enter there on the second evening following his conversation with Claudia, related in the foregoing chapter, found Sir Henry's ward sitting alone in the cosy-corner, half hidden by the draperies. The light from the green-shaded lamp, insufficient to illuminate the whole place, only revealed the table with its piles of papers, but upon her face the firelight danced, throwing her countenance into bold relief. As she sat there in her pale-blue dress she made a picture of a most contenting sort. "What! alone!" he exclaimed pleasantly as he advanced to meet her, settling his dress-tie with his hand, for he had just come in from a drive and had slipped into his clothes hurriedly. "Yes," she laughed, stretching forth her small foot coquettishly upon the red Turkey rug before the fire. "You men are so long making your toilette; and yet you blame us for all our fal-lals." "Haven't you been out?" "Yes," she answered; "I went this afternoon into Shrewsbury with Lady Richard to do some shopping. What a curious old town it is! I've never been there before, and was most interested." "True it's old-fashioned, and far behind the times, Miss Mortimer," he said, smiling, as he stood before her, his back to the fire. "But I always thought that you did not care for the antique."