“Pray is this the way you cure a cold?” he asked, abruptly.  “Last night Lady Mary Vincent informed me that you had staid at home to nurse a cold.  This morning I call to enquire for the interesting invalid, and find she is out in the cool February air.”

“It is very mild, and it is at night the air is dangerous,” returned Katherine, smiling.

“Now I look at you, I don’t think you look so blooming as usual.  May I go back with you and pay my visit of condolence, in spite of having left my card?”

“Yes,” said Katherine, with sudden decision.  “I want to speak to you.”

“Indeed!”—­with a keen, eager look.  “This is something new.  May I ask—­”

“No; not until we are in Miss Payne’s drawing-room.”

“You alarm me.  Could it be possible that you, peerless as you are, have got into a scrape?”

“Well, I think I can say I have,” said Katherine, smiling.

“Great heavens! this is delightful.”

“Let us talk of something else.”

“By all means.  Will you hear some gossip?  I don’t often retail any, but I fancy you’ll be amused and interested to know that Lady Alice Mordaunt is really going to marry that brewer fellow.  You remember I told you what I thought was going on last autumn.”

“Is it possible?” cried Katherine.  “Imagine her so soon forgetting Mr. Errington!”

“And why should not that immaculate individual be exempt from the usual fate of man?”

“I don’t know—­except that he is not an ordinary man.”

“No; certainly not.  He is an extraordinary fellow; but I must say he has shown great staying power in his late difficulties.  They tell me he has been revenging himself by writing awful problems, political and critical, which require a forty-horse intellectual power to understand.”  And De Burgh talked on, seeing that his companion was disinclined to speak until they reached Miss Payne’s house.

Katherine took off her hat and warm cloak with some deliberation, thinking how best to approach her subject.  Pushing back her hair, which had become somewhat disordered from its own weight, she sat down on an ottoman, and raising her eyes to De Burgh, who stood on the hearth-rug, said, slowly, “I have a secret to tell you which you must keep for a few weeks.”

“For an eternity, if you will trust me,” he returned, in low, earnest tones, his dark eyes fixed upon her, as if trying to read her heart.

“Well, then, my uncle’s son and heir, whom we believed to be dead, has suddenly reappeared, and of course takes the fortune I have been, let us say, enjoying.”

De Burgh did not reply at once; his eyes continued to search her face as if to discover some hidden meaning.

“Do you mean me to take you seriously, Miss Liddell?”

“Quite.  Moreover, I fear my cousin means to demand the arrears of income—­income which I have spent.”

“But the fellow must be an impostor.  Your man of business, Newton, will never yield to his demands.  He must prove his case.”