on talking of Mrs. Herne, as though to keep her mother from questioning her further. 

 "There is a mystery about Mrs. Herne," she said, coming to the fire; "for I asked Aunt Selina who she was, and she could not tell me." 

 "That is so like Selina," rejoined Mrs. Octagon tartly, "receiving a person of whom she knows nothing." 

 "Oh, she does know a little. Mrs. Herne is the widow of a Spanish merchant, and she struck me as being foreign herself. Aunt Selina has known her for three years, and she has come almost every week to play whist at Rose Cottage. I believe she lives at Hampstead!" 

 "It seems to me, Juliet, that your aunt told you a great deal about this person. Why did you ask?" 

 Juliet stared into the fire.  "There is something so strange about Mrs. Herne," she murmured.  "In spite of her gray hair she looks quite young. She does not walk as an old woman. She confessed to being over fifty. To be sure, I saw her only once." 

 Mrs. Octagon grew rather cross.  "I am over fifty, and I'm sure I don't look old, you undutiful child. When the soul is young, what matters the house of clay. But, as I was saying," she added hastily, not choosing to talk of her age, which was a tender point with her, "Selina Loach likes low company. I know nothing of Mrs. Herne, but what you say of her does not sound refined." 

 "Oh, she is quite a lady." 

 "And as to Mr. Clancy and Mr. Jarvey Hale," added Mrs. Octagon, taking no notice, "I mistrust them. That Hale man looked as though he would do a deed of darkness on the slightest provocation." 

 So tragic was her mother's manner, that Juliet turned even paler than she was.  "Whatever do you mean?" she asked quickly. 

 "I mean murder, if I must use so vulgar and melodramatic a word." 

 "But I don't understand—" 

 "Bless me," cried Mrs. Octagon, becoming more prosaic than ever, "there is nothing to understand. But Selina lives in quite a lonely house, and has a lot of money. I never open the papers but what I expect to read of her death by violence." 

 "Oh," murmured Juliet, again crossing to the window, "you should not talk like that, mother!" 

 Prev. P 20/226 next