MR.

CHAPTER XIV

STRATHMOIRA

R VERNON found Mrs Vernon in the morning-room, engaged with what seemed to be household accounts. As is apt to be the case when people have been married to each other for more years than they sometimes care to remember, morning greetings were with them a minus quantity. He began without any preface:

Everything all right for this afternoon?

She looked up from a bill.

Yes, I think so; as far as I know." She looked back at the bill. "I am confident Barnes has made a mistake, he is always doing it." She looked up again, turning half round in her chair. "But, Harold, have you seen her?”

"You mean Miss Gilbert? I have; and-I'm rather prepossessed with her. I confess that Frances' ecstasies made me a trifle nervous; but so far as appearance and manner go she strikes me as being distinctly good style, as girls run nowadays. she-or someone-might have let us know that she was coming, considering, so far as we're concerned, that she's a perfect stranger. She seems to have dropped from the clouds; she doesn't seem as if

But

she were the kind of girl who'd do it. Who's the Mr Frazer she speaks of?"

"Mr Frazer?"

"She says she came with Mr Frazer Eric Frazer?"

"Eric Frazer? She must mean Strathmoira." "Strathmoira?"

"Of course, his name is Frazer-Eric Frazer." "But, why should she speak of the Earl of Strathmoira as Mr Frazer?"

My dear Harold, it's no use putting questions to me, because I keep putting questions to myself, and I get no answers. Directly I begin to think I feel I am getting out of my depth, so I try not to think. I console myself with the reflection that I always have known that Strathmoira's stark, staring mad."

"But, do you mean to say that Strathmoira brought Miss Gilbert to this house without letting us have the least hint that he was coming, at goodness knows what hour of the night?"

"You may well say goodness only knows. You had been gone what seemed to me hours, and I was just getting into bed, when I heard a vehicle coming up the drive. I called to Parkes not to open the door till he had asked who it was through the window; but I suppose I must have spoken louder than I meant, and of course the windows in my room were wide open; and, as you know, it's right over the hall door, which for the moment I'd forgotten; anyhow, a voice answered from without:

'It's all right, Adela, don't you let me be the cause of Parkes straining his vocal chords; it isn't burglars, it's yours to command.' When I realised that the voice was Strathmoira's you might have knocked me down with a feather."

"I daresay. Why, how long is it since we've seen or heard anything of the fellow?"

"As you put it, goodness only knows. I replied to him through the window: 'I'm alone in the house, I don't know if you're aware what time it is; I'm just going to bed-couldn't you come round in the morning?'"

"He answered: 'No, I couldn't; I've got Miss Gilbert here, Frances' friend, so perhaps you won't mind hurrying down to let us in!'"

"Pretty cool, upon my word."

"Cool! When Parkes had opened the door, and I went down, looking I don't know how, he was as much at his ease as if he'd dropped in to pay an afternoon call; and there was a tall slip of a girl, with black hair, big grey eyes, and a white face, whom I took to at once."

"So did I, when I saw her just now."

"He introduced her; and said she had come to make a long stay; and asked if I'd mind her going to bed at once, as she'd had a very tiring day, and was tired out. She looked it, to me she seemed unnaturally pale. As she stood there, without speaking a word, I felt quite sorry for the child. So I took her upstairs and lent her Frances' things to

go

to bed with-she hadn't even so much as an extr a pocket-handkerchief of her own."

"I thought you said she'd come to stay."

"So he said-but she hadn't so much as a handbag in the way of luggage."

"I suppose it's coming-or has it come?"

"It is not coming; nor has it come. If you'll allow me I'll try to make you understand as much as I understand-which is very little. The whole thing seems to me to be mysterious; however, by this time I ought to know Strathmoira. When I came downstairs again he told me a story of which I did not find it easy to make head or tail. It seems that Miss Gilbert has a guardian, in whose charge she appears to have been."

"You remember Frances said she'd left the convent with her guardian; and that was why she didn't want to stop."

"I do remember.

It seems that the guardian is not in a state of health to take proper care of his ward, though what ails him I couldn't make out; so Strathmoira brought her to me."

"Of course we are very glad to see her; but— what has Strathmoira got to do with Miss Gilbert? And why as a matter of course has he brought her to you?-without giving you any notice, in that unceremonious fashion? Hasn't she any friends of her own ?"

"My dear Harold, you are sufficiently acquainted with Strathmoira to be aware that you can rain

questions at him, and that, without refusing to answer one, he can evade them all, and do it in such a way that you are not sure if he knows that you ever put them. I asked him everything I could think of in the short time he stayed; but all that he told me amounted to this that he hopes I'll treat Miss Gilbert as a daughter."

Upon my word!—and she a stranger!"

"He also hoped that I'll see her properly fitted up with clothes from top to toe!"

"With whose money?"

"With his or hers-I don't know whose; I only know that he gave me a hundred pounds in notes, and here they are. When he wondered if that would be enough to start with, I said it depended on the circumstances of the girl, and I asked if she had any means; and he replied: 'Ample! ample!' twice over; and he added that no expense was to be spared in fitting her up with all that a girl of her age ought to have. Now you know how Frances told us she was neglected by her people, and continually left without a penny of pocket-money; and how that man who took her away informed her that her father had died and left her penniless; and how sorry I was for her; and, because I was so sorry, I gave Frances permission to ask her to spend the summer with us-and Frances couldn't, because she didn't know her address. I believe I am not a person to judge hastily and harshly; but I cannot