These being her Ladyship’s personal merits, impartial history must acknowledge, on the list of her defects, a total want of tact and taste in her attire.  The lapse of time since Lord Lydiard’s death had left her at liberty to dress as she pleased.  She arrayed her short, clumsy figure in colors that were far too bright for a woman of her ages.  Her dresses, badly chosen as to their hues, were perhaps not badly made, but were certainly badly worn.  Morally, as well as physically, it must be said of Lady Lydiard that her outward side was her worst side.  The anomalies of her dress were matched by the anomalies of her character.  There were moments when she felt and spoke as became a lady of rank; and there were other moments when she felt and spoke as might have become the cook in the kitchen.  Beneath these superficial inconsistencies, the great heart, the essentially true and generous nature of the woman, only waited the sufficient occasion to assert themselves.  In the trivial intercourse of society she was open to ridicule on every side of her.  But when a serious emergency tried the metal of which she was really made, the people who were loudest in laughing at her stood aghast, and wondered what had become of the familiar companion of their everyday lives.

Her Ladyship’s promenade had lasted but a little while, when a man in black clothing presented himself noiselessly at the great door which opened on the staircase.  Lady Lydiard signed to him impatiently to enter the room.

“I have been expecting you for some time, Moody,” she said.  “You look tired.  Take a chair.”

The man in black bowed respectfully, and took his seat.

CHAPTER II.

Robert Moody was at this time nearly forty years of age.  He was a shy, quiet, dark person, with a pale, closely-shaven face, agreeably animated by large black eyes, set deep in their orbits.  His mouth was perhaps his best feature; he had firm, well-shaped lips, which softened on rare occasions into a particularly winning smile.  The whole look of the man, in spite of his habitual reserve, declared him to be eminently trustworthy.  His position in Lady Lydiard’s household was in no sense of the menial sort.  He acted as her almoner and secretary as well as her steward—­distributed her charities, wrote her letters on business, paid her bills, engaged her servants, stocked her wine-cellar, was authorized to borrow books from her library, and was served with his meals in his own room.  His parentage gave him claims to these special favors; he was by birth entitled to rank as a gentleman.  His father had failed at a time of commercial panic as a country banker, had paid a good dividend, and had died in exile abroad a broken-hearted man.  Robert had tried to hold his place in the world, but adverse fortune kept him down.  Undeserved disaster followed him from one employment to another, until he abandoned the struggle, bade a last farewell to