XXVII. A GLIMPSE OF THE PAST, 210 XXVIII. PREPARING THE GROUND, 220 XXIX. KERRY, 228 XXX. MRS. BEZEL AGAIN, 235 XXXI. AN EVENING AT THE VICARAGE, 241 XXXII. THE DISCOVERIES OF SPENSER TAIT, 249 XXXIII. THE STORY OF THE MAD GARDENER, 258 XXXIV. A LETTER FROM HORRISTON, 268 XXXV. THE ORIGINAL OF THE PORTRAIT, 275 XXXVI. A STRANGE THING HAPPENS, 282 XXXVII. A VOICE FROM THE DEAD, 290 XXXVIII. A NEW ASPECT OF THINGS, 299 XXXIX. THE GARNET SCARFPIN, 306 XL. FACE TO FACE, 314 XLI. AN EXPLANATION, 321 XLII. THE TRAGEDY OF A WOMAN'S VANITY, 329 XLIII. THE LAST APPEARANCE OF FRANCIS HILLISTON, 336 XLIV. THE TRUTH, 343 XLV. A FEW WORDS BY SPENSER TAIT, 351 THE THIRD VOLUME. CHAPTER I. AN OLD FRIEND. WHEN Spenser Tait took his seat at the breakfast table, he cast a look around, according to custom, to see that all was as orderly as he could wish. The neatest and most methodical of men, he was positively old maidish in his love of regularity and tidiness. His valet, Dormer,--with him for over fifteen years,--had been trained by such long service into the particular ways of his master, and was almost as exacting as Tait himself in the matter of domestic details. No woman was permitted to penetrate into those chambers in Earls Street, St. James'; but had one been able to do so, she could have found no fault with them, either on the score of taste or of cleanliness. The shell of this hermit crab was eloquent of the idiosyncrasies of its tenant.