Just now the uproar which had caused the master of the house to spring up from his dinner was more than usually vociferous. The three had escaped from their extemporized nursery, and had shouted and tumbled tumultuously down the staircase and into the hall. The street door happened to be open, and the consequences were disastrous. One rushed down the steps with a scream of triumph, which changed into a shrill shriek of anger as he was pursued, captured, and brought back by Patrick, in spite of violent kicking and struggling; another, backing unconsciously toward the kitchen staircase, overbalanced, and, descending with a succession of startling b.u.mps, fell into a tray of gla.s.ses with a terrific crash; while the third and youngest, not precisely comprehending what was the matter, but being of a highly sympathetic temperament, threw herself upon the devoted Patrick, screaming, kicking, and scratching furiously; which, added to the shouts of the youth whom Patrick carried upside down, and the wails of the unfortunate whom Mrs. Jessop had just rescued from the _debris_ of the gla.s.ses, swelled the uproar into a chorus that was almost deafening.

The Doctor sat down again, and took up his knife and fork with an energy which sent the gravy flying over the snowy cloth.

"Confound the little wretches! I'll advertise to-morrow!" he said.

The noise outside subsided a little as Mrs. Jessop appeared upon the scene, but the next moment it broke out again, growing louder as the staircase was mounted. Evidently Mrs. Jessop intended to put the rebels to bed--a resolution which did not apparently please them, for Doctor Brudenell distinctly heard his elder nephew threaten to punch the head of that worthy woman, while his brother and sister appeared to be trying to dance upon her toes. Then came a cessation of the hubbub, sudden and soothing, and the Doctor finished his dinner in peace.

Crossing the hall toward his study a little later, with the intention of getting a book to add to the enjoyment of a very fine-flavored cigar, he encountered Mrs. Jessop, somewhat flushed and tumbled, coming down-stairs, and stopped to speak to her.

"Well, Mrs. Jessop, got rid of your charges for to-night--eh?" he said, good-humoredly.

"That I haven't, sir, for to go to bed they wouldn't! I've seen a good many children, but never did I see children so set upon their own way as them children!" declared Mrs. Jessop, emphatically.

The Doctor felt that this was correct; his opinion being that any children in the least degree resembling Laura's luckily did not exist anywhere.

"Oh, spoilt, Mrs. Jessop," he remarked, judicially--"spoilt--that's it!

They'll be better, you'll find, when we get a good strict governess for them; and that reminds me, I must certainly advertise for one to-morrow. I don't know how it is that it has slipped my memory for so long. So they're not in bed, the young rogues--eh?"

"No, sir--they're with Miss Boucheafen."

"With her? You should not have allowed it--you should not have let them go in?" said the Doctor, quickly and peremptorily.

"I couldn't help it, sir," returned the housekeeper, stolidly. "They started making such a racket of stamping and screaming outside her door that she heard and opened it to ask what was the matter. Of course, they were for rushing in before I could keep them back, and so she said, Let them stay awhile, and she would keep them still; and so there they are, and she telling them some fairy-tale nonsense."

"Well, well!" exclaimed the Doctor; and then added, "How does Miss Boucheafen seem to-day?"

"Better, I think, sir--she seems so. She asked me to say that if you were at liberty she would be glad if you could spare her a few minutes."

"Tell her I will come up presently," said Doctor Brudenell, going on to the study. "Don't let those young torments stay there long enough to tire her, Mrs. Jessop, if you please. She is still very weak."

But, when he went up-stairs half an hour later, he found that Mrs.

Jessop had not yet succeeded in getting the "young torments" out of Miss Boucheafen's room. Miss Boucheafen was sitting in a great chair by the fire, her dark hair streaming over her shoulders, and with the children grouped about her--Floss on her knee, Maggie perched on the arm of her chair, and Tom kneeling at her feet, all three listening intently to what she was telling them. What it was the Doctor did not hear, for the group broke up at his entrance; Tom sprang to his feet, Maggie jumped down, and Miss Boucheafen let Floss slip from her knees to the floor.

"Oh, uncle, I wish you hadn't come!" cried Tom.

"It was such a yuvly 'tory!" lamented Maggie, whose five-year-old vocabulary was but limited; while Floss, whose name was short for Ferdinand, and who had perhaps not yet fully recovered from the shock of his tumble down the kitchen stairs, contented himself with surveying his relative with an implacable expression as he sucked his thumb.

"I will finish the story to-morrow, perhaps," said Miss Boucheafen, quietly; "go to bed now. See--Mrs. Jessop is waiting for you."

They went without a murmur--indeed, they hardly looked sulky, but walked off in the wake of Mrs. Jessop, very unlike Laura's children, the Doctor thought. He was amazed, and stood for a few moments, after the door had closed behind them, quite silent, and looking at Alexia Boucheafen.

A month had pa.s.sed since the night of the attempted murder in Rockmore Street, and, although during that time she had lived under his roof, George Brudenell knew no more of this girl than her name. One thing, however, he did know, and was growing to know better day by day--that she was beautiful, with a beauty that was to him unique, startling; he had seen none like it before. She had risen as the children left the room, and stood with her hand resting upon the mantel-shelf, her eyes gazing downward at the fire, her head above the level of his. He looked at her, thinking how beautiful she was, and thinking--not for the first time either--that he was not sure whether that very beauty did not repel rather than charm him. For it seemed to have at once the glitter of ice and the hardness of stone; her large, dark, bright eyes seemed to pierce him, but they never touched his heart; a smile sometimes broke the perfect lines of her lips, but never reached those eyes; the natural play of her features seemed to be checked; she appeared to be as incapable of tears as of laughter, of grief as of joy; no rush of warm blood ever tinted the strange pallor of her cheeks with crimson; her voice was rich and full, but there was a jarring note in its melancholy music; the girl was like marble--breathing, moving, living, but marble still.

The Doctor waited for her to speak; but, either from perversity or indifference, she stood like a statue, and would not even raise her eyes. He was forced to break the silence, which embarra.s.sed him, and he knew that he spoke awkwardly.

"I think," he said, "that you wished to speak to me?"

"Yes, sir, if you please."

This was another anomaly--her words were always of a meek and submissive character, but her voice, her look, her gestures were those of a queen. The Doctor felt this, but hardly its incongruity, as she slowly resumed her seat and signed to him to be seated also.

"I am quite at your service, of course," he replied, as he sat down; "but first let me ask how you are feeling?"

"I am well," she answered, gravely. "A little weak, still, perhaps, but it will pa.s.s. I wish--ah, pardon me, I am forgetting that I am not to thank you, sir!"

She had attempted to thank him before, when she first recovered her senses and realized her position, but he had sensitively deprecated that. On that same day she had told him her name, told him that she was French, that in England she was friendless, and that of what little she possessed she had been robbed by the man whom he had seen attack her--a man whom she had never seen before; and this was all that he knew about her. He wanted to know more, but he sat before her wondering how to phrase his questions. In spite of his curiosity he would have deferred them had it been possible, but it was not possible; and he broke the silence timidly, for as he spoke she looked at him full in the face with her dark eyes.

"Miss Boucheafen, if you are strong enough to allow of it--"

"As I said, sir, I am well."

"I must, with your permission, ask you a few questions." He hesitated, almost confused under her steady gaze. "I am presuming that you would rather reply to me than be questioned by a police-officer?"

"I do prefer it, sir."

"Then," said the Doctor, "this man who so murderously attacked you--you can tell nothing about him?"

"Nothing, sir--I know nothing."

"Absolutely nothing?"

"Absolutely!"

"You do not know his motive?"

"Ah, sir--you forget! He robbed me."

"True, true!" the Doctor returned, a slight flush tinting his cheeks, for he fancied that he detected a mocking gleam in her eyes, a suspicion of a smile curving her lips.

"True--I had forgotten. Pray pardon me," he said, "but the attack was so violent, the blow so savage, the weapon must have been so keen, that it is almost impossible to connect it with a mere attempt to commit a paltry robbery. I thought, and the police thought, that it was a case of intended murder."

"Ah, sir, they are clever, your police, but they sometimes make mistakes! Is it not so?"

Doctor Brudenell's face flushed crimson. Was she laughing at him? It looked like it. He was taken aback, discomfited. He did not know how to go on, but she gave him no chance, for she spoke herself, emphasizing her words by rapid gestures and much energetic waving of her white hands.

"Listen, then, sir. This is all I know--that this man followed me--why, I have no idea--that he came upon me suddenly in the solitary street and asked me for money; that, when I refused it, he tore my purse away; that, as I seized his arm and screamed, he wrenched it free, and struck me with what you tell me was a dagger. I know no more but what you tell me--nothing."

George Brudenell, listening and looking, believed after all his own fancy was but a fancy. The theory of the sergeant and the inspector was only a theory, a mere empty possibility, unsupported by fact. He abandoned both ideas forthwith.

"Miss Boucheafen, could you recognize this man?"

"I think not--I am sure not." She shook her head, her eyes fixed musingly upon the fire. "It was dark. No--I could not recognize him."

"Nor could I, unfortunately."

"And yet you saw him?"

"I saw him, yes--but only well enough to know that he was young, tall and dark. And such a description would apply equally well to a hundred men within a stone's throw of the house at the present moment."