"Hewitt calls it Sir Karl's room, now," interrupted Miss Blake. "You smoke in it, don't you, Sir Karl?" "I did smoke in it once or twice when I was staying down here during the time of my mother's illness," he replied. "But I am not a great smoker. Just one cigar at night: and not always that." "Did I see that room, Karl?" asked his wife. "No, Lucy. It was hardly worth showing you." "Oh, but I shall like it better than all the rest, if it's yours." "Come and see it then." She put her arm within his, and he looked down on her with a smile as they went through the house. Miss Blake walked behind with drawn-in lips. Sir Karl was greatly altered in manner, she thought; all his life and spirits had left him: and he did not seem in the least glad to see _her_. The room on the other side had grey walls and looked altogether rather dowdy. Books and maps were on the shelves, a large inkstand stood on the table, and the chimney-piece was ornamented with a huge Chinese tobacco-box. "Now, Karl, that great arm-chair shall be yours, and this little one mine," said Lucy. "And you must let me come in when I please--although I can see it is to be your business room, just as it was Sir Joseph's." "As often as you will, my darling." He threw open the glass doors as he spoke, stepped across the terrace, and down the steps to the lawn--for this room answered in every respect to the other. This room faced the south; the front of the house the west, and Miss Blake's favourite room the north. The sun came slantwise across the flower beds. Sir Karl plucked one of the sweetest roses, and brought it to his wife. Lucy said nothing as she took it; but Miss Blake, observant Miss Blake, saw the lingering touch of their hands; the loving glance from Lucy's eyes to his. "Shall I show you your rooms upstairs, Lady Andinnian? If you have not been up." "Thank you, I'll take Lucy myself," said Karl. "No, we have not been up." The rooms they were to occupy lay in front, towards the northern end of the corridor. The bedroom was large and beautifully fitted up. Just now Aglaé had it in confusion, unpacking. Two dressing-rooms opened from it. Sir Karl's on the right--the last room at that end; Lucy's on the left: and beyond Lucy's was another bedroom. These four rooms all communicated with each other: when their doors stood open you might see straight through all of them: each one could also be entered from the corridor. "But what do we want with this second bedroom?" asked Lucy, as she stood in it with her husband. A full minute elapsed before he answered her, for it was the room where that strange communication, which was o'ershadowing his life, had been made to him by his mother. The remembrance of the turbulent night and its startling disclosures was very present with him, and he turned to the window, and put his head out, as though gasping for a breath of air.