called very handsome, I suppose, and yet there is something
about her face which I didn't like. The features are exquisite,
but the expression is strange. And all the time I was looking
at her, and afterwards, when I was going home, I had a curious
feeling that very expression was in some way or another
familiar to me."

"You must have seen her in the Row."

"No, I am sure I never set eyes on the woman before; it
is that which makes it puzzling. And to the best of my belief I
have never seen anyone like her; what I felt was a kind of dim
far-off memory, vague but persistent. The only sensation I can
compare it to, is that odd feeling one sometimes has in a dream,
when fantastic cities and wondrous lands and phantom personages
appear familiar and accustomed."

Villiers nodded and glanced aimlessly round the room,
possibly in search of something on which to turn the
conversation. His eyes fell on an old chest somewhat like that
in which the artist's strange legacy lay hid beneath a Gothic
scutcheon.

"Have you written to the doctor about poor Meyrick?" he
asked.

"Yes; I wrote asking for full particulars as to his
illness and death. I don't expect to have an answer for
another three weeks or a month. I thought I might as well
inquire whether Meyrick knew an Englishwoman named Herbert, and