"Quite so," he said. "A casual meeting. Such occurs occasionally in the course of one's life, and I dare say the resemblance you noticed was only a fancied one. It must have been," he added, looking on the ground, and speaking in an absent way; "for as it happens, my brother"--he nodded towards the portrait--"was unmarried, had no relations other than myself and my son." He turned away to the fire again. "Oh, yes; only a fancied one. Good night." This was a definite dismissal, and Celia, murmuring, "Good night, my lord," went up the stairs. At the bend of the corridor she glanced down involuntarily. The Marquess had turned from the fire again, and was looking, with bent brows, at the portrait. CHAPTER XIV As Celia undressed slowly, going over the scene that had taken place in the hall below, recalling the changes in the Marquess's expressive face, his strange manner, with its suggestion of anger and impatience, she sought in vain for an explanation. Had he actually been annoyed and irritated by her admission that she had noticed a resemblance in the portrait of his dead brother to someone whom she had met? He had said, emphatically, that it was only a fancied resemblance, and she accepted his decision. It certainly could be only a freak of imagination on her part, seeing that the Marquess's brother had not married--indeed, it was ridiculous to suppose that there was any connection between the noble family of the Sutcombes and the unknown man in the poverty-stricken room at Brown's Buildings. Woman-like, her mind dwelt more on him than on the Marquess's impatience and annoyance. There was something strange, mysterious, in the fact that, not only was she haunted by the memory of the young man, but that here, at Thexford Hall, she should fancy a portrait of one of the family resembled him. It did not need much to recall him to her mind; for it may be said that in no idle moment of hers was her mind free of him. Now she asked herself, for the hundredth time, not only what had become of him, but what was her duty to him. She had not tried to find him, had not endeavoured to communicate with him. At the moment it occurred to her that she might have inserted a carefully-guarded advertisement in the Personal column of one or more of the newspapers, and she felt ashamed that the thought had not struck her before. She almost, but not quite, decided to insert such an advertisement at once; but, as she pondered, she questioned the wisdom of such an action. Her mind swung, like a pendulum, from one side to the other, and at last she fell asleep, still undecided, but still thinking of him.