disguised herself, and had been the living counterfeit of Sionèd
Penrhyn; but that was no reason why he should have called a woman who
had belonged to his grandmother's time by her first name. Could
Weir, thoroughly imbued with the character she was unconsciously
representing, have exercised her hypnotic power from the moment she
entered the gallery, and left him without power to think or feel
except through her own altered perceptions? He thrust out his foot
against the fender, almost overturning it, and, throwing back his
head, clasped his hands behind it and scowled at the black ceiling
above him. He was a man who liked things explained, and he felt both
sullen and angry that he should have had an experience which baffled
his powers of analysis and reason. His partial solution gave him no
satisfaction, and he had the uncomfortable sense of actual mystery,
and a premonition of something more to come. This, however, he was
willing to attribute to the depressed condition of his spirits, which
threw its gloom over every object, abstract and concrete, and
which induced the tendency to exaggerate any strange or unpleasant
experience of which he had been the victim. It was useless to try to
think of anything else; his brain felt as if it had resolved itself
into a kaleidoscope, through which those three scenes shifted
eternally. Finally, he fell asleep, and did not awaken until it was
time to dress for dinner. Before he left his room, Weir's maid knocked
at his door and handed him a note, in which the lady of Rhyd-Alwyn
apologized for leaving him to himself for an entire day, and announced
that she would not appear at dinner, but would meet him in the
drawing-room immediately thereafter. Dartmouth read the note through
with a puzzled expression: it was formal and stilted, even for Weir.
She was gone when he came to his senses in the gallery the night
before. Had she awakened and become conscious of the situation? It was
not a pleasant reminiscense for a girl to have, and he felt honestly