There were lights in the windows, and the temperate tinkle of my bell
brought a servant immediately to the door, but poor Mrs. Stormer had
passed into a state in which the resonance of no earthly knocker was
to be feared. A lady, in the hall, hovering behind the servant, came
forward when she heard my voice. I recognised Lady Luard, but she
had mistaken me for the doctor.

"Excuse my appearing at such an hour," I said; "it was the first
possible moment after I heard."

"It's all over," Lady Luard replied. "Dearest mamma!"

She stood there under the lamp with her eyes on me; she was very
tall, very stiff, very cold, and always looked as if these things,
and some others beside, in her dress, her manner and even her name,
were an implication that she was very admirable. I had never been
able to follow the argument, but that is a detail. I expressed
briefly and frankly what I felt, while the little mottled maidservant
flattened herself against the wall of the narrow passage and tried to
look detached without looking indifferent. It was not a moment to
make a visit, and I was on the point of retreating when Lady Luard
arrested me with a queer, casual, drawling "Would you--a--would you,
perhaps, be WRITING something?" I felt for the instant like an
interviewer, which I was not. But I pleaded guilty to this
intention, on which she rejoined: "I'm so very glad--but I think my
brother would like to see you." I detested her brother, but it
wasn't an occasion to act this out; so I suffered myself to be
inducted, to my surprise, into a small back room which I immediately
recognised as the scene, during the later years, of Mrs. Stormer's
imperturbable industry. Her table was there, the battered and