Felicia Moorsom remained near the house.  Sometimes she could be seen with a despairing expression scribbling rapidly in her lock-up dairy.  But only for a moment.  At the sound of Renouard’s footsteps she would turn towards him her beautiful face, adorable in that calm which was like a wilful, like a cruel ignoring of her tremendous power.  Whenever she sat on the verandah, on a chair more specially reserved for her use, Renouard would stroll up and sit on the steps near her, mostly silent, and often not trusting himself to turn his glance on her.  She, very still with her eyes half-closed, looked down on his head—­so that to a beholder (such as Professor Moorsom, for instance) she would appear to be turning over in her mind profound thoughts about that man sitting at her feet, his shoulders bowed a little, his hands listless—­as if vanquished.  And, indeed, the moral poison of falsehood has such a decomposing power that Renouard felt his old personality turn to dead dust.  Often, in the evening, when they sat outside conversing languidly in the dark, he felt that he must rest his forehead on her feet and burst into tears.

The professor’s sister suffered from some little strain caused by the unstability of her own feelings toward Renouard.  She could not tell whether she really did dislike him or not.  At times he appeared to her most fascinating; and, though he generally ended by saying something shockingly crude, she could not resist her inclination to talk with him—­at least not always.  One day when her niece had left them alone on the verandah she leaned forward in her chair—­speckless, resplendent, and, in her way, almost as striking a personality as her niece, who did not resemble her in the least.  “Dear Felicia has inherited her hair and the greatest part of her appearance from her mother,” the maiden lady used to tell people.

She leaned forward then, confidentially.

“Oh!  Mr. Renouard!  Haven’t you something comforting to say?”

He looked up, as surprised as if a voice from heaven had spoken with this perfect society intonation, and by the puzzled profundity of his blue eyes fluttered the wax-flower of refined womanhood.  She continued.  “For—­I can speak to you openly on this tiresome subject—­only think what a terrible strain this hope deferred must be for Felicia’s heart—­for her nerves.”

“Why speak to me about it,” he muttered feeling half choked suddenly.

“Why!  As a friend—­a well-wisher—­the kindest of hosts.  I am afraid we are really eating you out of house and home.”  She laughed a little.  “Ah!  When, when will this suspense be relieved!  That poor lost Arthur!  I confess that I am almost afraid of the great moment.  It will be like seeing a ghost.”

“Have you ever seen a ghost?” asked Renouard, in a dull voice.

She shifted her hands a little.  Her pose was perfect in its ease and middle-aged grace.