legal phraseology of the document which had just stripped him of seventy
thousand a year.

Half an hour later the brothers had dispersed, Coryston and James to their
bachelor quarters, Arthur to the House of Commons. The front door was no
sooner shut than a slender figure in white emerged from the shadows of the
landing overhead. It was Marcia, carrying a book.

She came to the balustrade and looked over into the hall below. Nothing to
be heard or seen. Her brothers, she perceived, had not left the house
from the drawing-room. They must have adjourned to the library, the large
ground-floor room at the back.

"Then Mr. Lester knows," she thought, indignantly. "Just like Corry!"
And her pride revolted against the notion of her brothers discussing her
mother's actions, her mother's decisions, with this stranger in the house.
It was quite true that Mr. Lester had been a friend both of Arthur and of
Coryston at Oxford, and that Arthur in particular was devoted to him. But
that did not excuse the indiscretion, the disloyalty, of bringing him into
the family counsels at such a juncture. Should she go down? She was certain
she would never get to sleep after these excitements, and she wanted the
second volume of _Diana of the Crossways_. Why not? It was only just
eleven. None of the lights had yet been put out. Probably Mr. Lester had
gone to bed.

She ran down lightly, and along the passage leading to the library. As she
opened the door, what had been light just before became suddenly darkness,
and she heard some one moving about.

"Who is that?" said a voice. "Wait a moment."