trouble to find it out--another little betrayal, and another clue.

It was in a secluded corner of the great hall, and Henriot turned to see
the woman's stately figure coming towards them across the thick carpet
that deadened her footsteps. She came sailing up, her black eyes fixed
upon his face. Very erect, head upright, shoulders almost squared, she
moved wonderfully well; there was dignity and power in her walk. She was
dressed in black, and her face was like the night. He found it
impossible to say what lent her this air of impressiveness and solemnity
that was almost majestic. But there _was_ this touch of darkness and of
power in the way she came that made him think of some sphinx-like figure
of stone, some idol motionless in all its parts but moving as a whole,
and gliding across--sand. Beneath those level lids her eyes stared hard
at him. And a faint sensation of distress stirred in him deep, deep
down. Where had he seen those eyes before?

He bowed, as she joined them, and Vance led the way to the armchairs in
a corner of the lounge. The meeting, as the talk that followed, he felt,
were all part of a preconceived plan. It had happened before. The woman,
that is, was familiar to him--to some part of his being that had dropped
stitches of old, old memory.

Lady Statham! At first the name had disappointed him. So many folk wear
titles, as syllables in certain tongues wear accents--without them being
mute, unnoticed, unpronounced. Nonentities, born to names, so often
claim attention for their insignificance in this way. But this woman,
had she been Jemima Jones, would have made the name distinguished and
select. She was a big and sombre personality. Why was it, he wondered
afterwards, that for a moment something in him shrank, and that his
mind, metaphorically speaking, flung up an arm in self-protection? The