From out the Vasty Deep

ry few moments, and, leaning forward, held out her hands to the fire. They were not pretty hands: though small and well-shaped, there was somethi

ad made it impossible for her to go out to Monte Carlo this winter. She had been sharply vexed, beside herself with annoyance, almost tempted to do what she had never ye

But the truth, fortunately, is not always known, and Blanche Farrow doubted if any other member of the circle of friends and acquaintances he had picked up in his adventurous, curious life knew of that first-now evidently by him almost forgotten-ma

in a curious, accidental fashion, and she had thought it only fair to tell him what she had learned-and then, half relucta

ll it his real marriage, the news of which he had conveyed to

el Varick and his affairs had not meant quite so much to her as they would have done if she had been nearer home. Still, she had felt a pang. A man-friend married is often a man-friend marred. But she had been very glad to gather, reading between the lines of his note,

with consumption. Blanche had written back at once-by that time she was a good deal nearer home than Portugal, though still abroad-asking if she could "do anything?" And he had answered that no, there was nothing to be done. "Poor Milly" had a horror of sanatoriums, so he was going to take her to some quiet place on the south coast. He had ended his note with th

ord "beloved." Somehow it was not like the man

ded life had not apparently altered him at all. There was, however, one great difference-he was quite at ease about money. That was all-but that was

an of great taste, known in the art world of London as a collector of fine Jacobean furniture, long before Jacobean furniture had become the rage. After her father's de

the only occasion when he had really talked of his late wife to Bla

ionel attracted by weakness or simplicity before. All women seeme

ull girlhood there. But it's a delightful place, and I hope to live there as soon as I can

row now reminded herself, Lionel Varick had an extraordinary

success. She had never met three of the people who were coming to-night-a Mr. and Miss Burnaby, an old-fashioned and, she gathered, well-to-do brother and sister, and their niece, Helen Brabazon. Miss Brabazon had been an intimate frie

had understood the "dreadful time" referred to the last weeks of his wife's life. "I've been to the Burnabys' hou

esome, old-fashioned people in his party. Then she told herself that it was doubtles

y was an enormously rich man called James Tapster. Tapster was a cynical, rather unp

ent he had had to "chuck." There was a hope, however, that he might be able to come after Christmas. Dr. Pant

t, on the sunny side of forty. Sir Lyon was "in the City," as are now so many men of his class and kind. He took his work seriously, and spent many hours of each

on, her own niece, Bubbles Dunster, and Bubbles' favourite dancing partner, a young man called Bill Donningto

nit themselves as she thought of

n the Sketch and in the Daily Mirror. She was constantly roped in to help in any smart charity affair, and she could dance, act, and sell, with the best. She was as popular with women as with men, for there was something disarming, attaching, almost elfish, in Bubbles Dunster's charm. For one thing, she was so good-natured, so kindly, so always eager to do someone a g

eper into it. It's impairing her looks, making her nervous and almost hysterical-in a word, quite unlike herself. I spoke to her some time ago, and desired her most earnestly to desist from it. But a father has no power nowadays! I have talked the matter over with young Donnington (of whom I sometimes suspect she is fonder than she knows), an

had never really thought about it at all-Miss Farrow regarded all that she knew of spiritualism as a gigantic fraud. It annoyed her fastidiousness to think that her own niece should be in any way associated with

had changed! She could not imagine her own father, though he had been far

e knew that he was the third or fourth son of a worthy North-country parson-in other words, he "hadn't a bob." He was, of course, the last man Bubbles would ever think of m

n she had assented to Lionel Varick's suggestion that rich,

ng up and down the broad path which followed the course of the moat, could still see, sharply outlined against the pale win

e house was brilliantly illuminated. But as the windows in the beautiful linen-panelled hall were diamond-paned, the brilliance was soften

Wyndfell Hall with the outside world, and, as he stood there in the gathering twilight, he looked a romantic figure. Tall and well

ing a white thread or two, which did not, however, detract from his look of youth. He had a fine broad forehead; deep, well-set grey eyes; and a beautiful, sensitive mouth, which he to

ion and of depression-and yet with an amazing power of self-co

ldly out of any possibility of attainment. He came, on both his father's and his mother's side, of people who had lived for centuries the secure, pleasant life of the English county gentry. But instead of taking advantage of th

y. So it was that the shabby, ugly little villa where his boyhood had been spent on the outskirts of a town famous for its grammar-school, and where his mother settled

mpanion. She had been his enemy from the first day they had met, and she had done her utmost to prevent his marriage to her employer. Even now, in spite of what poor Milly's own solicitor called his "thoughtful generosity" to Miss Pigchalke, the woman was pursuing Varick with an almost insane hatred. About six months ago she had called on Dr. Panton, the clever young medical m

his own accord suggested that he should allow Miss Pigchalke a hundred a year. She had begun by sending back the first half-yearly cheque; but she had finally accepted it! To-

m his thoughts, and turned his mind to the still attractive

only unmarried daughter of an Irish peer whose title had passed away to a distant cousin. Miss Farrow could have lived in comfort and in dig

d become her absorbing interest in life. It was well indeed that what fortune she had was strictly settled on her sisters' children, her two brothers-in-law being her trustees. With one of them, who was really wealthy, she had long a

lone with her faithful maid, to some cheap corner of the Continent; and as she kept he

an will be found rebuking sin, so Blanche Farrow had set herself to stop the then young Lionel Varick on the brink. He had been in love with her at that time, and on the most unpleasant evening when a cosy flat in Jermyn Street had been raide

she looked, if anything, younger than he did, for she had the slim, upright figure, the pretty soft brown hair, and the delicate, finely modelled features which keep so many an Englishwoman of her type and class young

ples. But not even to herself would she have allowed him to be called by the ugly name of adventurer. Perhaps it would be truer to say-for she was a very clever woman-that even if, deep in her heart, she must have admitted that such a name would have once suited him,