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was even greater than I had supposed. Wilkins had barely time to step back out of the way before she entered; she was advancing toward us when he made the belated announcement: "Lady Baskerville."

    Two

    THE words fell on my ears with almost supernatural force. To see this unexpected visitor, when I had just been thinking and talking about her (and in no kindly terms) made me feel as if the figure now before us was no real woman, but the vision of a distracted mind.
    And I must confess that most people would have considered her a vision indeed, a vision of Beauty posing for a portrait of Grief. From the crown of her head to her tiny slippers she was garbed in unrelieved black. How she had passed through the filthy weather without so much as a mud stain I could not imagine, but her shimmering satin skirts and filmy veils were spotless. A profusion of jet beads, sullenly gleaming, covered her bodice and trailed down the folds of her full skirt. The veils fell almost to her feet. The one designed to cover her face had been thrown back so that her pale, oval countenance was framed by the filmy puffs and folds. Her eyes were black; the brows lifted in a high curve that gave her a look of perpetual and innocent surprise. There was no color in her cheeks, but her mouth was a full rich scarlet. The effect of this was startling in the extreme; one could not help thinking of the damnably lovely lamias and vampires of legend.
    Also, one could not help thinking of one's mud-stained, unbecoming gown, and wonder whether the aroma of whiskey covered the smell of moldy bone, or the reverse. Even I, who am not easily daunted, felt a pang of self-consciousness. I realized that I was trying to hide my glass, which was still half full, under a sofa cushion.
    Though the pause of surprise—for Emerson, like myself, was gaping—seemed to last forever, I believe it was only a second or two before I regained my self-possession. Rising to my feet, I greeted our visitor, dismissed Wilkins, offered a chair and a cup of tea. The lady accepted the chair and refused the tea. I then expressed my condolences on her recent bereavement, adding that Sir Henry's death was a great loss to our profession.
    This statement jarred Emerson out of his stupor, as I had thought it might, but for once he showed a modicum of tact, instead of making a rude remark about Sir Henry's inadequacies as an Egyptologist. Emerson saw no reason why anything, up to and including death, should excuse a man from poor scholarship.
    However, he was not so tactful as to agree with my compliment or add one of his own. "Er—humph," he said. "Most unfortunate. Sorry to hear of it. What the deuce do you suppose has become of Armadale?"
    "Emerson," I exclaimed. 'This is not the time—"
    "Pray don't apologize." The lady lifted a delicate white hand, adorned with a huge mourning ring made of braided hair—that of the late Sir Henry, I presumed. She turned a charming smile on my husband. "I know Radcliffe's good heart too well to be deceived by his gruff manner."
    Radcliffe indeed! I particularly dislike my husband's first name. I was under the impression that he did also. Instead of expressing disapproval he simpered like a schoolboy.
    "I was unaware that you two were previously acquainted," I said, finally managing to dispose of my glass of whiskey behind a bowl of potpourri.
    "Oh, yes," said Lady Baskerville, while Emerson continued to grin foolishly at her. "We have not met for several years; but in the early days, when we were all young and ardent—ardent about Egypt, I mean—we were well acquainted. I was hardly more than a bride—too young, I fear, but my dear Henry quite swept me off my feet."
    She dabbed at her eyes with a black-bordered kerchief.
    "There, there," said Emerson, in the voice he sometimes uses with Ramses. "You must not give way. Time will heal your grief."
    This from a man who curled up like a hedgehog when forced into what he called society, and who never in his