"I think you had better get your uncle a little whisky, or something," said Lady Aspasia to Baby, as, upon their ejection into the passage, she guided the poor gentleman's vague footsteps towards her own room. "Come in here, Arty; there's a good fire."

Sir Arthur turned his eyes upon her with a vacant look, catching at surprise.

"Yes, my room. But, Lord, I don't think any of us need mind the convenances to-night!"

She gave a dry laugh. At least, whatever rules were transgressed now—they only regarded him and her: the thought came with sudden and exceeding pleasantness upon her; and that heart of hers, atrophied by long disuse, was stirred. She looked at the helpless, dazed creature, sinking into her armchair, with a softness that, even in his most gallant youth, his image had not evoked. "Good fellow" as she was, Lady Aspasia was yet a woman in the hidden fibre.

Young Aspasia, shuffling about in her slippers, yet still fleet of foot, broke in upon their silence with the decanter. Shivering, partly with fatigue, partly with the chill of the dawn, she stood, vaguely watching the elder lady administer a stiff bumper to Sir Arthur.

Complete as was the turmoil in her own mind, deep as was her distress and anxiety anent Rosamond, Baby's sense of humour was irresistibly acute: the vision of Lady Aspasia, incompletely attired under her motor coat, her loose coiled hair (divested of the dignity of her "transformation") presenting a strangely flat appearance, bending with such solicitude over so reduced a Runkle, brought a hysterical giggle in her throat.

"Pray," said Lady Aspasia, wheeling round upon her, "don't begin to cry here, my dear! One is as much as I can manage."

"I'm not crying," retorted young Aspasia, as indignantly as her chattering teeth would allow. "I'm laughing."

"Then that's worse," responded the other, succinctly. "Take some whisky, too. Go to bed."

Sir Arthur, gulping down the potent mixture provided for him, extended a forbidding left hand:

"One moment," he ordered; then choked and coughed. But the stimulant was working its effect, his backbone was notably stiffer. The native dignity, not to say pomposity, was returning to his support. He regarded his niece with eyes, severe, if somewhat watery. "How long, Aspasia, have you known this—this—disgraceful state of affairs?"

He rolled his suffused gaze from the girl to his distinguished relative, seeking a kindred indignation.

"You mean, how long I have known that Aunt Rosamond wasn't married at all? Oh, Lord, what am I saying?—that she's got two husbands—gracious, I can't help being muddled. Who could? Anyhow, that she's not married to you? I——"

"The premises are by no means established," interrupted Sir Arthur, with not unsuccessful reaching after his old manner. "But how long, I ask, have you known of the presence in this house—or in this neighbourhood—of the person, impostor or no, who dares to present himself as Harry English?"

"Well, as a matter of fact," said Baby, hugging herself in her dressing-gown, the warmth of the fire, the heat of her reawakening antagonism, getting the better of her chill tremors; "as a matter of fact, you have known him a good deal longer and more intimately than I have."

"Lord, child, how you bandy words!" said Lady Aspasia, disapprovingly; "let her go to bed, Arty. Surely, you'll have plenty of time by-and-by for all this."

But the Lieutenant-Governor waived the interruption aside with impatience. Miss Cuningham did not await further questioning. It would be scarce human to feel no complacency in the power to impart weighty information. And Baby ............