Suddenly, just as she had returned by a steep path to the dilapidated terrace on the north side of the house—­a sound of horses’ feet and wheels.  Evidently a carriage—­a caller.  Netta’s pulse fluttered.  She ran into the house by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothed her hair anxiously, and lightly powdered her face.  There was no time to change her dress, but she took out a feather boa which she kept for great occasions, and prepared to descend with dignity.  Oh the stairs she met Mrs. Dixon, who announced “Lady Tatham.”

“Find Mr. Melrose, please.”

“Oh, he’s there, Ma’am, awready.”

Netta entered the drawing-room to see her husband pacing up and-down before a strange lady, who sat in one of the crimson armchairs, entirely at her ease.

“So this is your wife, Edmund,” said Lady Tatham, as she rose.

“It is.  You’ll make mock of her no doubt—­as you do of me.”

“Nonsense!  I never make mock of anybody,” said a musical voice, rich however through all its music in a rather formidable significance.  The owner of it turned toward Netta.

“I hope, Mrs. Melrose, that you will like Cumbria?”

Netta, accustomed to Edmund’s “queerness,” and determined to hold her own, settled herself deliberately opposite her visitor, and was soon complaining in her shrill voice of the loneliness of the place and the damp of the climate.  Melrose never once looked at his wife.  He was paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta.  He seemed for once to be unsure of his ground—­both to expect attack, even to provoke it—­and to shrink from it.  His eyes were fixed upon Lady Tatham, and followed her every movement.

Attention was certainly that lady’s due; and it failed her rarely.  She had beauty—­great beauty; and a personality that refused to be overlooked.  Her dress showed in equal measure contempt for mere fashion, and a close study of effect.  The lines of her long cloak of dull blue cloth, with its garnishings of sable, matched her stately slenderness well; and the close-fitting cap over the coiled hair conveyed the same impression of something perfectly contrived and wholly successful.  Netta thought at first that she was “made up,” so dazzling was the white and pink, and then doubted.  The beauty of the face reminded one, perhaps, of the beauty of a boy—­of some clear-eyed, long-chinned athlete—­masterfully simple—­a careless conqueror.

How well she and Edmund seemed to know each other!  That was the strange, strange thing in Netta’s eyes.  Presently she sat altogether silent while they talked.  Melrose still walking up and down—­casting quick glances at his guest.  Lady Tatham gave what seemed to be family news—­how “John” had been sent to Teheran—­and “George” was to be military secretary in Dublin—­and “Barbara” to the astonishment of everybody had consented to be made a Woman of the Bedchamber—­“poor Queen!”—­how Reginald Pratt had been