furniture, but it looked bare and as if it had only recently been inhabited. As she followed the woman upstairs, she heard the flyman deposit the boxes in the hall, the door close after him, and the fly drive away. The landing was as bare as the hall; the woman opened the door of a room which had also been newly painted and papered, but had a close, musty smell, which seemed to pervade the whole house, or as much as Kyra had seen of it. The room was plainly but not uncomfortably furnished, but Kyra was surprised at the absence of anything like luxury, such as she would have expected in the house of a rich person.

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I brought you some hot water," said the woman; "and I'll help bring up one of your boxes at once; for no doubt you would like to have it.

Kyra, as she thanked her, looked at her with natural curiosity, and saw that she was a middle-aged woman with a face that indicated an unusual amount of firmness and resolution; but, though it was rather a hard face, it was not an unkind Kyra heard her box placed outside the door, then the woman dragged it in.

one.

"Can I

"I'll bring up the other one presently," she said. help you in any way? I shall hear you when you come down." She looked with a calm kind of scrutiny at the girl's paie and beautiful face, then lowered her eyes and left the room. Kyra sat on the bed for a minute or two, endeavouring to master her disappointment and surprise. It was all so different to what she had expected. She had pictured a luxuriously appointed house in the suburbs: well lit and with several servants; but it seemed to her that she had recognised Stracey's footsteps descending the stairs after her box had been put at her door, and she had a suspicion that the woman who had received them was the only servant. However, she would soon learn more of the situation.

She removed her hat and jacket, and, after a good wash, felt a little more cheerful; and, having arranged her hair, she opened the door and went down-stairs. The woman, who appeared to have been waiting for her in the hall, came forward with a nod and a little smile, and, opening a door, showed her into what looked like a dining-room. It was a gloomy-looking apartment, sparsely furnished and badly lit by a paraffin lamp. The table was laid for supper, and Stracey stood by the fire-place, in which a fire, newly lit, was smouldering in a lamp and cheerless fashion. Kyra looked round expectantly; but Stracey was alone-there was no other lady but herself in the room.

"Another disappointment," he said, as he came forward, with a smile, and set a chair at the table for her. "Mrs. Malcolm has a very bad headache, and has been obliged to go and lie down. She sent to say how sorry she is and that she will try to get up to receive you; but I knew that you would not wish her to do so; and I begged her, in your name, on no account to get up. The supper will be ready in a moment or two: you must be wanting it very badly."

Kyra sat down and looked about her and remained silent, while the woman put some cold meat and other things on the table, and, after pausing to see if they asked for anything, left the room. Kyra waited until the door had closed, then she said:

"I am sorry Mrs. Malcolm is ill. What a strange place, Stracey!"

"Isn't it?" he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "It appears that Mrs. Malcolm had given up her London house and that she came to this place, which belongs to her, for the week or two between leaving her house in town and starting on her travels."

Kyra could not suppress a shudder as she listened to the wind and the rain, the rattling of the windows and the moaning of the elms outside; but far worse than all these noises was the cerie silence which seemed to brood over the grim place.

"Are there no other servants but this woman?" she asked, as she tried to eat the slice of cold meat which Stracey had passed her.

"No," he said; "they have all been discharged, excepting the lady's-maid, who is in London, and will join you to-morrow. This is the housekeeper. Her name is Lambert: an old and faithful servant, I take it, from what she says. Not a very cheerful place or reception, Kyra," he added; "and I am afraid you feel depressed and disappointed; but you must remember that it is only for one night and must keep up your spirits. I, myself, feel rather down in the mouth; but I should be under any circumstances; for it is hard to part with you, Kyra."

He appeared to have as little appetite as Kyra, though he made a great pretence and fuss of eating; and presently he rose and went to the sideboard; but as he opened the door of the cellarette, he stopped as if he had recollected himself.

"I declare," he said, with an uneasy laugh and a flush; “I was going to see if there was any wine, going to help myself. Bad manners that!"

He rang the bell and came back to the table, and when Mrs. Lambert entered, asked for some wine. She brought out a decanter and he filled Kyra's glass, but she shook her head; and presently she laid down her knife and fork and sat listening.

"Is it not time Mrs. Froyte should be here?" she asked. He started slightly and looked at her as if he had forgotten; then he took out his watch and seemed to calculate.

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Do you know, I am afraid she won't come," he said. 'Having missed us at the junction, she must have gone back home; and, really, considering all things, it was the best thing she could have done."

Kyra went a little paler and she sighed.

"I am sorry," she said in a low voice. "I should have liked her to have been with me to-night, especially as Mrs. Malcolm is not well enough to see me. Are you sure she has gone back? She may be waiting at the station."

He rose and poured himself out some wine into a tumbler and looked at her under his half-shut lids, with a strange expression on his sinister face.

"I don't think there is any cause for uneasiness," he said; "but if it will make you any more satisfied, I will go to the station and enquire. I have no doubt I can wire along the line, though, of course, it is too late to send a telegram in the ordinary way."

"I shall be very glad. if you would," said Kyra; "for I do feel uneasy about her, and I should like to know what has become of her."

"Very well," he assented, almost with an air of relief as it seemed to Kyra. "I will go. It is on the cards that I may meet the fly bringing her. By the way, if I do not get satisfactory news, you will not mind if I follow her up, if I do not return here to-night?"

"Oh, no," said Kyra. "Why should I? I am most anxious about her. She is so nervous, she is not fit to be travelling alone, and I am quite sure that she will be frightened and upset at having missed us.

He went into the passage and Kyra fancied that she heard him talking in a whisper to Mrs. Lambert. Presently ne returned with his overcoat on and his hat in his hand.

"I am off," he said. "If I do not return to-night, you will give my kind regards to Mrs. Malcolm and make my excuses. I shall meet you at Charing Cross to-morrow.

"But do you know the time we shall start?" asked Kyra, with some surprise.

He looked confused for a moment.

"Oh, she will be sure to telegraph to me," he said. "I wish I were leaving you under more cheerful circumstances, Kyra. Say the word, and I will remain."

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"No, no," she said. "Pray go and find out what has be come of Mrs. Froyte."

He held out his hand.

"Good-bye-no, I will not say good-bye, but good-night." She gave him her hand and almost recoiled as she did so, for his was as cold as ice. He smiled at her with a smile which she had always disliked, which had always aroused a vague fear and mistrust in her bosom, then he went out. She heard the door close behind him, a key turned in the lock, and bolts shot into their sockets. She went and stood beside the fire, looking into the cheerless blaze, and listening for some sound in the gaunt house. She was too tired to think of herself, almost too tired to be anxious on Mrs. Froyte's account. It seemed to her that the whole thing was a kind of nightmare, from which she would awake presently, cold and shuddering. Presently the door opened and the woman of the house came in and began to clear the supper things away. When she had finished, she said, respectfully enough, but with a kind of self-contained calmness, which sits ill upon

a servant:

"Wouldn't you like to go to bed, miss? You look fagged and tired. It's been a long journey for you."

"Thank you, I think I will go to bed," said Kyra.

The woman took the lamp from its bracket on the wall and preceded Kyra up the stairs.

"I've lit a fire for you," she said; "it will be more comfortable. I hope you'll ask for anything you want. We're a long way from the shops, and it often isn't easy to get anyone to send; but I'll manage to get anything you want, anything in reason."

Kyra looked at her in blank amazement. How could she want anything between now and to-morrow morning, when she and Mrs. Malcolm would start for the Continent?

"Thank you very much," she said; "but I don't understand."

The woman looked confused for a moment, then went and turned down the bed and Kyra walked to the window and drew aside the curtains and the blind.

"Is it raining still?" she asked. "We shall have a bad passage to-morrow if the wind-"

She broke off suddenly, for, to her amazement, she saw

that the window was heavily barred. She turned to the woman with a faint exclamation.

"Why are these great bars at the window?" she asked.

"Bars?" echoed the woman, without turning her head. "Are there bars? Oh, yes; this used to be the nursery. They were put there to keep the children from falling out. Kyra smiled.

"It makes one think of a prison," she said, as she began to take off her collar. "Have you seen Mrs. Malcolm since we arrived? Is she better?"

"Oh, yes, she is better," replied the woman.

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"I wonder-I wonder whether she would like me to see her," said Kyra, pausing as she unhooked her blouse. should like very much to see her, if only for a moment or two."

The woman went softly between Kyra and the door and regarded her with a curious mixture of pity and firmness. "Now, don't you worry about Mrs. Malcolm, miss," she said, soothingly. "You'll see her all in good time. What you've got to do to-night, is to go to bed and get a good sleep and wake up bright and cheerful in the morning. I daresay you are upset by the journey and the strangeness of it all; but there's no cause for you to feel any alarm, or to be nervous in any way. Your good guardian has left you in my charge, and, though I say it, he couldn't have left you in a better. I shall take as much care of you as if you were my own flesh and blood."

Kyra stood as if she were turned to stone and regarded the woman in amazement, mingled with a vague dread. Why did she say this to her, in such a tone, with such a strange expression on her face?

"I don't understand you; I don't know what you mean, she said in a voice which she tried to keep steady. "My guardian-do you mean Mr. Stracey Froyte?-has not left me to your care. I am engaged as companion to your mistress, to Mrs. Malcolm-I want to see her-I-I- Why do you look like that?" she broke off, for the woman was regarding her with the same strange mixture of pity and decision. Kyra's vague fear grew to actual dread. With a cry, she sprang towards the door, and, crying: "Stracey! Mrs. Froyte!" ran down the stairs to the front door. It was locked, as she knew, but the key had been removed; and as her trembling hands flew from the lock to the bolts, the woman came behind her and took hold of her firmly, but not uns gently, by the arms.