The Grey Lady

ife by loss i

drunk, but the w

ons at your disposition, and take the liberty of writing to request an interview, instead of calling on you at your hotel, for reasons which you will readily understand, knowing as you do the gossiping ways of hotels. As an old friend of your father's, and one who moved and lived in neighbou

E LLOSETA D

n on the mainland twenty-four hours when it was delivered to her by a servant of the Count's, wh

. But the varying emotions of the last week had, as it were, undermined the confident hopefulness with which we look forward when we are young, and sometimes when we are old, to the management of our own lives here below. She was beginning to understand certain terms which

uite what to do with them all. She had never, in the quiet, dreamy days of her youth, pictured a life with any of these men in it, and the future was suddenly tremendous, unfathomable. Th

eck for forty years, she sat down and accepted the Count's informal invitation. She seemed to do it without reflection, as if impelled thereto by something str

s awaiting their host in the massive, gloomy drawing-room of th

t to love his niece with a simple, dog-like devotion, which had a vein of pathos in it for those

you had come alone. I--you know I am getting too old to learn ma

mile which he did not understand. "At any rate," she went on, touching

ow? What, n

at this moment the door was opened. The man who came in was of me

s hand. "You do not remember your mother? I do, however. You are like h

hout the faintest flicker of surprise

avely, "to make Captain

betrayed the fact that his hair, close cut as an English soldier's, was touched and flecked with grey.

low voice. "I took the privilege of the elder ge

tish ease of manner, strangel

gone to Mallorca at once to offer you what poor assistance was in my power. But circumstances, over which I

eliance in this new-found ally. "But I have good friends - the

ittiwake-

es

," he said, with a sudden smile which took her by surprise by reason of

" answered Eve, wi

e Count, turning t

hat sailor bluntly,

that this is the first time we meet, and to look upon m

he girl, "always sp

, tell me, who have you in the

no one

at Eve would come and live with me. It isn't a grand house--just a

ne of his dark smiles. "I was merely wondering whether Miss C

s blue eyes wandered from her face to the dark

imperturbably, "you have not yet

Captain Bontnor wagged his head in confirmation. "Your own la

r young lady, thereby

l d'Erraha belongs to you, and you must know

ea, and cream? I do not know how many points the law has, but one wo

cup to her with a grave smile, as if the matter under

ce--a place one might easily become attached to. Do you know"--he turned his b

nd I used to go t

of tea in silence. But Eve was not thinking of

fairs," she said. "He was naturally rath

's affairs had been left in some confusion. He was too thorough a gentleman to be competent in affairs. I thought that perhaps

e island, although we did not see Se?or Pe?a, your lawyer. I--the Casa d'Er

said the C

not do

is shoulders

d you cannot shift your resp

nently worthy of the great name he bore--a solitary, dark-eyed, inscrutable man, wh

pt the Casa d'Erra

forward a cha

ey are two hundred years behind Northern Europe. What must they have been a hundred and twenty years ago? We have no means of finding out what passed between your great-grandfather and my grandfather. We only know that three generations of Challoners have lived in the Casa d'Erraha, paying to the Counts of Lloseta a certain proportion of the product of the estate. I do not mind telling you that the smallness of that proportion does away with the argument th

d. What woma

down his cup very

ever belonged to my late brother-in-law. Now what I say is, if the place belongs by right to Miss Challoner she'll take i

laughed

r, it is no

his hands very dee

And she has no need of that. Tha

inful suggestion of incapability that sometimes came over him

crying question of ways and means--"if it comes to that, I can g

was stil

Challoner done that I should offer her that? I am in ignoran

e is nothing. But I can work. I thought that my kno

d--- I mean I should not like y

s apparently

the property in the hands of a third person--you know the value of land in Majorc

man's instinct took her further than did Capt

ing to give me D'Erraha. It was a generous thing to do--a most generous thing. I think people would hardly believe me if I told them. I can only thank you; for I have no possible means of provi

ad out his two ha

ed gently, "I have no