“It is very kind of her, Mrs. Alleyne.  Now let me have the keys, if you please; I have one or two things to see to, and I will not detain you now.”

She handed him the keys and accepted her dismissal gratefully, for she was anxious to get off and see about luncheon.  Then Brand proceeded to stroll quietly, and perhaps even sadly, through the empty and resounding rooms that had for him many memories.

It was a rambling, old-fashioned, oddly-built house, that had been added on to by successive generations, according to their needs, without much reference to the original design.  It had come into the possession of the Brands of Darlington by marriage:  George Brand’s grandfather having married a certain Lady Mary Heaton, the last representative of an old and famous family.  And these lonely rooms that he now walked through—­remarking here and there what prominence had been given by his mother to the many trophies of the chase that he himself had sent home from various parts of the world—­were hung chiefly with portraits, whose costumes ranged from the stiff frill and peaked waist of Elizabeth to the low neck and ringleted hair of Victoria.  But there was in an inner room which he entered another collection of portraits that seemed to have a peculiar fascination for him—­a series of miniatures of various members of the Heaton and Brand families, reaching down even to himself, for the last that was added had been taken when he was a lad, to send to his mother, then lying dangerously ill at Cannes.  There was her own portrait, too—­that of a delicate-looking woman with large, lustrous, soft eyes and wan cheeks, who had that peculiar tenderness and sweetness of expression that frequently accompanies consumption.  He sat looking at these various portraits a long time, wondering now and again what this or that one may have suffered or rejoiced in; but more than all he lingered over the last, as if to bid those beautiful tender eyes a final farewell.

He was startled by the sound of some vehicle rattling over the gravel outside; then he heard some one come walking through the echoing rooms.  Instantly, he scarcely knew why he shut down the lid of the case in front of him.

“Missed the train by just a second,” Lord Evelyn said, coming into the room; “I am awfully sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brand answered; “but I am glad you have come.  I have everything squared up in London, I think; there only remains to settle a few things down here.”

He spoke in quite a matter-of-fact way—­so much so that his friend forgot to utter any further and unavailing protest.