'Lady Montbarry, Miss.'

Agnes was writing a letter, when the servant astonishedher by announcing the visitor's name. Her first impulse wasto refuse to see the woman who had intruded on her. But LadyMontbarry had taken care to follow close on the servant's heels.Before Agnes could speak, she had entered the room.

'I beg to apologise for my intrusion, Miss Lockwood.I have a question to ask you, in which I am very much interested.No one can answer me but yourself.' In low hesitating tones,with her glittering black eyes bent modestly on the ground,Lady Montbarry opened the interview in those words.

Without answering, Agnes pointed to a chair. She could do this,and, for the time, she could do no more. All that she had readof the hidden and sinister life in the palace at Venice; all that shehad heard of Montbarry's melancholy death and burial in a foreign land;all that she knew of the mystery of Ferrari's disappearance,rushed into her mind, when the black-robed figure confronted her,standing just inside the door. The strange conduct of Lady Montbarryadded a new perplexity to the doubts and misgivings that troubled her.There stood the adventuress whose character had left its mark onsociety all over Europe--the Fury who had terrified Mrs. Ferrari atthe hotel--inconceivably transformed into a timid, shrinking woman!Lady Montbarry had not once ventured to look at Agnes, since shehad made her way into the room. Advancing to take the chairthat had been pointed out to her, she hesitated, put her handon the rail to support herself, and still remained standing.'Please give me a moment to compose myself,' she said faintly. Her headsank on her bosom: she stood before Agnes like a conscious culpritbefore a merciless judge.

The silence that followed was, literally, the silence of fearon both sides. In the midst of it, the door was opened once more--and Henry Westwick appeared.

He looked at Lady Montbarry with a moment's steady attention--bowed to her with formal politeness--and passed on in silence.At the sight of her husband's brother, the sinking spirit of the womansprang to life again. Her drooping figure became erect. Her eyes metWestwick's look, brightly defiant. She returned his bow with an icysmile of contempt.

Henry crossed the room to Agnes.

'Is Lady Montbarry here by your invitation?' he asked quietly.

'No.'

'Do you wish to see her?'

'It is very painful to me to see her.'

He turned and looked at his sister-in-law. 'Do you hear that?'he asked coldly.

'I hear it,' she answered, more coldly still.

'Your visit is, to say the least of it, ill-timed.'

'Your interference is, to say the least of it, out of place.'

With that retort, Lady Montbarry approached Agnes. The presenceof Henry Westwick seemed at once to relieve and embolden her.'Permit me to ask my question, Miss Lockwood,' she said,with graceful courtesy. 'It is nothing to embarrass you.When the courier Ferrari applied to my late husband for employment,did you--' Her resolution failed her, before she could say more.She sank trembling into the nearest chair, and, after a moment'sstruggle, composed herself again. 'Did you permit Ferrari,'she resumed, 'to make sure of being chosen for our courier by usingyour name?'

Agnes did not reply with her customary directness. Trifling as it was,the reference to Montbarry, proceeding from that woman of all others,confused and agitated her.

'I have known Ferrari's wife for many years,' she began.'And I take an interest--'

Lady Montbarry abruptly lifted her hands with a gesture of entreaty.'Ah, Miss Lockwood, don't waste time by talking of his wife!Answer my

plain question, plainly!'

'Let me answer her,' Henry whispered. 'I will undertake to speakplainly enough.'

Agnes refused by a gesture. Lady Montbarry's interruptionhad roused her sense of what was due to herself. She resumedher reply in plainer terms.

'When Ferrari wrote to the late Lord Montbarry,' she said, 'he didcertainly mention my name.'

Even now, she had innocently failed to see the object which her visitorhad in view. Lady Montbarry's impatience became ungovernable.She started to her feet, and advanced to Agnes.

'Was it with your knowledge and permission that Ferrari usedyour name?' she asked. 'The whole soul of my question is in that.For God's sake answer me--Yes, or No!'

'Yes.'

That one word struck Lady Montbarry as a blow might have struck her.The fierce life that had animated her face the instant before,faded out of it suddenly, and left her like a woman turned to stone.She stood, mechanically confronting Agnes, with a stillness so wraptand perfect that not even the breath she drew was perceptible to the twopersons who were looking at her.

Henry spoke to her roughly. 'Rouse yourself,' he said.'You have received your answer.'

She looked round at him. 'I have received my Sentence,' she rejoined--and turned slowly to leave the room.

To Henry's astonishment, Agnes stopped her. 'Wait a moment,Lady Montbarry. I have something to ask on my side. You have spokenof Ferrari. I wish to speak of him too.'

Lady Montbarry bent her head in silence. Her hand trembled as shetook out her handkerchief, and passed it over her forehead.Agnes detected the trembling, and shrank back a step. 'Is the subjectpainful to you?' she asked timidly.

Still silent, Lady Montbarry invited her by a wave of the hand to go on.Henry approached, attentively watching his sister-in-law. Agneswent on.

'No trace of Ferrari has been discovered in England,' she said.'Have you any news of him? And will you tell me (if you have heardanything), in mercy to his wife?'

Lady Montbarry's thin lips suddenly relaxed into their sadand cruel smile.

'Why do you ask me about the lost courier?' she said.'You will know what has become of him, Miss Lockwood, when the timeis ripe for it.'

Agnes started. 'I don't understand you,' she said. 'How shall I know?Will some one tell me?'

'Some one will tell you.'

Henry could keep silence no longer. 'Perhaps, your ladyshipmay be the person?' he interrupted with ironical politeness.

She answered him with contemptuous ease. 'You may be right,Mr. Westwick. One day or another, I may be the person who tellsMiss Lockwood what has become of Ferrari, if--' She stopped;with her eyes fixed on Agnes.

'If what?' Henry asked.

'If Miss Lockwood forces me to it.'

Agnes listened in astonishment. 'Force you to it?' she repeated.'How can I do that? Do you mean to say my will is strongerthan yours?'

'Do you mean to say that the candle doesn't burn the moth,when the moth flies into it?' Lady Montbarry rejoined. 'Have youever heard of such a thing as the fascination of terror? I am drawnto you by a fascination of terror. I have no right to visit you,I have no wish to visit you: you are my enemy. For the first timein my life, against my own will, I submit to my enemy. See! I amwaiting because you told me to wait--and the fear of you (I swear it!)creeps through me while I stand here. Oh, don't let me exciteyour curiosity or your pity! Follow the example of Mr. Westwick.Be hard and brutal and unforgiving, like him. Grant me my release.Tell me to go.'

The frank and simple nature of Agnes could discover but oneintelligible meaning in this strange outbreak.

'You are mistaken in thinking me your enemy,' she said.'The wrong you did me when you gave your hand to Lord Montbarry wasnot intentionally done. I forgave you my sufferings in his lifetime.I forgive you even more freely now that he has gone.'

Henry heard her with mingled emotions of admiration and distress.'Say no more!' he exclaimed. 'You are too good to her; she is notworthy of it.'

The interruption passed unheeded by Lady Montbarry. The simplewords in which Agnes had replied seemed to have absorbed the wholeattention of this strangely-changeable woman. As she listened,her face settled slowly into an expression of hard and tearless sorrow.There was a marked change in her voice when she spoke next.It expressed that last worst resignation which has done with hope.

'You good innocent creature,' she said, 'what does youramiable forgiveness matter? What are your poor little wrongs,in the reckoning for greater wrongs which is demanded of me?I am not trying to frighten you, I am only miserable about myself.Do you know what it is to have a firm presentiment of calamity thatis coming to you--and yet to hope that your own positive convictionwill not prove true? When I first met you, before my marriage,and first felt your influence over me, I had that hope.It was a starveling sort of hope that lived a lingering life in meuntil to-day. You struck it dead, when you answered my questionabout Ferrari.'

'How have I destroyed your hopes?' Agnes asked. 'What connection isthere between my permitting Ferrari to use my name to Lord Montbarry,and the strange and dreadful things you are saying to me now?'

'The time is near, Miss Lockwood, when you will discover thatfor yourself. In the mean while, you shall know what my fear of you is,in the plainest words I can find. On the day when I took your herofrom you and blighted your life--I am firmly persuaded of it!--you were made the instrument of the retribution that my sinsof many years had deserved. Oh, such things have happened beforeto-day! One person has, before now, been the means of innocentlyripening the growth of evil in another. You have done that already--and you have more to do yet. You have still to bring me to the dayof discovery, and to the punishment that is my doom. We shallmeet again--here in England, or there in Venice where my husband died--and meet for the last time.'

In spite of her better sense, in spite of her naturalsuperiority to superstitions of all kinds, Agnes was impressedby the terrible earnestness with which those words were spoken.She turned pale as she looked at Henry. 'Do you understand her?'she asked.

'Nothing is easier than to understand her,' he replied contemptuously.'She knows what has become of Ferrari; and she is confusing youin a cloud of nonsense, because she daren't own the truth.Let her go!'

If a dog had been under one of the chairs, and had barked,Lady Montbarry could not have proceeded more impenetrablywith the last words she had to say to Agnes.

'Advise your interesting Mrs. Ferrari to wait a little longer,'she said. 'You will know what has become of her husband, and youwill tell her. There will be nothing to alarm you. Some triflingevent will bring us together the next time--as trifling, I dare say,as the engagement of Ferrari. Sad nonsense, Mr. Westwick, is it not?But you make allowances for women; we all talk nonsense. Good morning,Miss Lockwood.'

She opened the door--suddenly, as if she was afraid of being calledback for the second time--and left them.