fell into a kind of a reverie, and forgot that my dear husband might
miss me.'

He came into the room as she was saying this. She told him that she
had stopped to look at the portrait, and asked whose it was.

'It is a likeness of Angus Egerton, the present owner of the
Priory,' Mr. Darrell answered; 'and a very good likeness, too--of as
bad a man as ever lived, I believe,' he added in a lower voice.

'A bad man?'

'Yes; he broke his mother's heart.'

'In what manner?'

'He fell in love with a girl of low birth, whom he met in the course
of a pedestrian tour in the West of England, and was going to marry
her, I believe, when Mrs. Egerton got wind of the affair. She was a
very proud woman--one of the most resolute masculine-minded women I
ever knew. She went down into Devonshire where the girl lived
immediately, and by some means or other prevented the marriage. How
it was done I never heard; but it was not until a year afterwards
that Angus Egerton discovered his mother's part in the business. He
came down to the Priory suddenly and unexpectedly at a late hour one
night, and walked straight to his mother's room. I have heard that
old woman who has been showing us the house describe his ghastly
face--she was Mrs. Egerton's maid in those days--as he pushed her
aside and went into the room where his mother was sitting. There was
a dreadful scene between them, and at the end of it Angus Egerton