"Hold your peace, old hussey!" said the visitor, evidently annoyed at
remarks so disparaging. "I am Jasper Losely, more bronzed of cheek, more
iron of hand." He raised his switch with a threatening gesture, that
might be in play, for the lips wore smiles, or might be in earnest, for
the brows were bent; and pushing into the passage, and shutting the door,
said, "Is your mistress up stairs? show me to her room, or--"

The old crone gave him one angry glance, which sank frightened beneath
the cruel gleam of his eyes, and hastening up the stairs with a quicker
stride than her age seemed to warrant, cried out, "Mistress, mistress!
here is Mr. Losely! Jasper Losely himself!" By the time the visitor had
reached the landing-place of the first floor, a female form had emerged
from a room above, a female face peered over the banisters. Losely
looked up and started as he saw it. A haggard face,--the face of one
over whose life there has passed a blight. When last seen by him it had
possessed beauty, though of a masculine rather than womanly character.
Now of that beauty not a trace! the cheeks shrunk and hollow left the
nose sharp, long, beaked as a bird of prey. The hair, once glossy in its
ebon hue, now grizzled, harsh, neglected, hung in tortured, tangled
meshes,--a study for an artist who would paint a fury. But the eyes were
bright,--brighter than ever; bright now with a glare that lighted up the
whole face bending over the man. In those burning eyes was there love?
was there hate? was there welcome? was there menace? Impossible to
distinguish; but at least one might perceive that there was joy.

"So," said the voice from above, "so we do meet at last, Jasper Losely!
you are come!"

Drawing a loose kind of dressing-robe more closely round her, the
mistress of the house now descended the stairs, rapidly, flittingly, with