Staring from this face, however, were two of the loveliest, most
unscrupulous of eyes, and those eyes did more for Lady Charlotte's
precarious income than any other of her resources. She wore her
expensive clothes quite beautifully, and gave lovely little lunches and
dinners; no really merry house-party was complete without her.

Sarah was her only child, and, although at the time of which I am
writing she was not yet nine years of age, there was no one in London
better suited to the adventurous and perilous existence that Fate had
selected for her. Sarah was black as ink--that is, she had coal black
hair, coal black eyes, and wonderful black eyelashes. Her eyelashes were
her only beautiful feature, but she was, nevertheless, a most remarkable
looking child. "If ever a child's possessed of the devil, my dear
Charlotte," said Captain James Trent to her mother, "it's your precious
daughter--she _is_ the devil, I believe."

"Well, she needs to be," said her mother, "considering the life that's
in store for her. We're very good friends, she and I, thank you."

They were. They understood one another to perfection. Lady Charlotte was
as hard as nails, and Sarah was harder. Sarah had never been known to
cry. She had bitten the fingers of one of her nurses through to the
bone, and had stuck a needle into the cheek of another whilst she slept,
and had watched, with a curious abstracted gaze, the punishment dealt
out to her, as though it had nothing to do with her at all. She never
lost her temper, and one of the most terrible things about her was her
absolute calm. She was utterly fearless, went to the dentist without a
tremor, and, at the age of six, fell downstairs, broke her leg, and so
lay until help arrived without a cry. She bullied and hurt anything or
anybody that came her way, but carried out her plans always with the