“W ELL, have you enjoyed yourself?” enquired Lady Anne when Jean returned. “I suppose so, as you stayed to tea”—smiling.

“Oh, I had tea with Claire. Sir Adrian was away”—with a small grimace—“so we had quite a nice little time together. But, yes, madonna”—Jean had fallen into the use of the gracious little name which Blaise and Nick kept for their mother—“I really enjoyed myself very much. Judith was ever so much nicer than I expected.”

“So now, I suppose, we shall all be side-tracked in favour of Burke and his sister?” put in Blaise, who had been listening quietly. There was a sharpness in his tones, as though the prospect did not please.

Jean smiled at him engagingly.

“Of course you will,” she replied. “I invariably sidetrack old friends when I get the chance.”

“Oh, you’ll get the chance right enough!”—rather sulkily. “Yes, I think I shall”—demurely. “Geoffrey has always been nice to me; and now Judith, too, has succumbed to my charms, and says she hopes we shall be good pals.”

Tormarin rose, pushing back his chair with unnecessary violence.

“I don’t think I see Judith Craig extending her friendship to Glyn Peterson’s daughter,” he commented cynically.

An instant later the door banged behind, and Lady Anne and Jean looked across at each other smiling, as women will when one of their menkind proceeds to behave exactly like a cross little boy.

But a quick sigh chased the smile from Lady Anne’s lips.

“Poor old Blaise!” she murmured, as though to herself. Then, her grey eyes meeting Jean’s squarely, she said quietly:

“Jean, you’re so much one of us, now, that I should like you to know what lies at the hack of things. You’d understand—some of us—better.”

Jean turned impulsively.

“I don’t need to understand you,” she said quickly. “I love you.”

“Thank you, my dear.” Lady Anne’s voice trembled slightly. “If I were not sure of that, I shouldn’t tell you what I am going to. But I want you to understand Blaise—and to make allowances for him, if you can.”

Jean pulled forward a stool and settled herself at Lady Anno’s feet.

“Do you mean about the ‘mark of the beast’?” she asked, smiling a little. “Blaise told me to ask you about it one day.”

“Did he? He thinks far too much about it and what it stands for”—sadly. “It has come to be almost a symbol in his eyes. You see, he too has suffered from the family failing—the very failing that was responsible for that white lock of hair.”

“Tell me about it.”

Lady Anne looked down at her thoughtfully.

“Well, there’s no need for me to tell you that the Tor-marins have hot tempers! You’ve seen evidences of it in Blaise—that sudden flaming up of anger. Though he has learnt through one most bitter experience to hold himself more or less in check.” She paused a moment, as if her thoughts had reverted painfully to the past. Presently she resumed: “All the Tormarin men have had it—that blazing, uncontrollable kind of temper which simply cannot brook opposition. Blaise’s father had it, and it was that which made our life together so unhappy.”

So Destiny had been busy with her snuffers here, also!

“You—you, too!” whispered Jean.

“I. too?” Lady Anne questioned. “What does that mean?”

“Why, it seems to me as if no one is ever allowed to be really happy and to live their life in peace! There is Judith, whose life my father spoilt, and Claire, whose life Sir Adrian spoils—and that means Nick’s life as well. And now—you!”

Some unconscious instinct of reticence deep within her forbade the mention of Blaise Tormarin’s name.

“I expect we are not meant to be too joyful,” said Lady Anne. “Though, after all, it’s largely our own fault if we are not. We make or mar each other’s happiness; it isn’t all Fate.... But I’ve had my share of happiness, Jean—never think that I haven’t. Afterwards, with Claude, I was utterly happy.”

She fell silent for a space, ceasing on that quiet note of happiness. Presently, almost loth to disturb the reverie into which she had fallen, Jean questioned hesitantly:

“And the ‘mark of the beast,’ madonna? You were going to tell me about it.”

“It came as a consequence of the Tormarin temper. That’s why Blaise calls it the ‘mark of the beast.’ It was just before he was born—when I was waiting for the supreme joy of holding my first-born in my arms. Derrick—Blaise’s father—was an extremely jealous-natured man. He hated to think that there had ever been anyone besides himself who cared for me. And there was one man, in particular, of whom he had always been foolishly jealous and suspicious. I can’t imagine why, though”—with a little puzzled laugh. “You would think that the mere fact that I had married him, and not the other man, would have been sufficient proof that he had no cause for jealousy. But no! Men are queer creatures, and he always resented my friendship with John Lovett—which continued after my marriage. I had known John from childhood, and he was the truest friend a woman ever had!” She sighed: “And I needed friends in those days! For somehow, brooding over things to himself, my husband conceived the idea that the little son who was coming was not his own child—but the child of John Lovett. I think someone must have poisoned his mind. There was a certain woman of our acquaintance whom I always suspected; she hated me and was very much attached to Derrick—she had wanted to marry him, I believe. In any case, he came home one evening, from her house, like a madman; and there was a scene... a terrible scene... he hurling accusations at me.... I won’t talk of it, because he was bitterly repentant afterwards. As soon as the fit of rage was past, he realised how utterly groundless his suspicions had been, and I don’t think he ever ceased to reproach himself. But that has always been the way! The Tormarins have invariably brought the bitterest self-reproach upon themselves. One way or another, the same story of blind, reckless anger, and its consequences, has repeated itself generation after generation.”

“And then? What happened then?” asked Jean in low, shocked tones.

“I was very ill—so ill that they thought I should not live. But I did live, and I brought my baby into the world. Only, he was born with that white lock of hair. And my own hair had turned perfectly white.”

Jean was silent for a little. At last she said softly:

“I’m so glad, madonna, that you were happy afterwards. Your ‘house of dreams’ came true in the end!”

“Yes”—Lady Anne’s grey eyes were very bright and luminous. “My house of dreams came true.”

After a while, she went on quietly:

“But my poor Blaise’s house of dreams fell in ruins. The foundation was rotten. You knew, didn’t you, that there was a woman he once cared for?”

Jean nodded. Speech was difficult to her just at that moment.

“It was a miserable business altogether. The girl, Nesta Freyne was an Italian. Blaise met her when he was travelling in Italy, and—oh, well, it wasn’t love! Not love as I know it, and as............