The bookkeeper touched a bell, and Manella appeared. Gwent stared
openly. Here--if "prize beauties" were anything--was a real winner!

"This gentleman wants Mr. Seaton"--said the bookkeeper--"Just show
him the way up the hill."

"Sorry to trouble you!" said Gwent, raising his hat with a courtesy
not common to his manner.

"Oh, it is no trouble!" and Manella smiled at him in the most
ravishing way--"The path is quite easy to follow."

She preceded him out of the "floral hall," and across the great
gardens, now in their most brilliant bloom to a gate which she
opened, pointing with one hand towards the hill where the flat
outline of the "hut of the dying" could be seen clear against the
sky.

"There it is"--she explained--"It's nothing of a climb, even on the
warmest day. And the air is quite different up there to what it is
down here."

"Better, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes! Much better!"

"And is that why Mr. Seaton lives in the hut? On account of the
air?"

Manella waved her hands expressively with a charming Spanish gesture