It was well into the following afternoon when the trained nurse came quietly down the stairs, and announced to Lord Ravenspur that her task was finished. Silva had died in his sleep. The troubled spirit was at rest, the tardy confession had been made, and Lord Ravenspur had no longer any occasion to fear the vengeance that had followed him so long. There would have to be an inquest, of course--as there was. But there was nothing much here to arouse public curiosity. A servant at the house on the common had been severely mauled by a savage dog prowling about, and he had succumbed to the shock. The newspapers had a few paragraphs, but in a day or two the incident was forgotten, nor was there any occasion to worry the owner of the house, seeing that the place had been taken by Silva in the proper name of his mistress. The servants had seen nothing either, so that scandal was entirely checked. It would, perhaps, be a difficult matter later on to explain the unexpected reappearance of Vera\'s mother, but it seemed to Ravenspur that he could see a way to solve that problem. And after the lapse of eighteen years, nobody would identify the Countess Flavio with the Italian scandal that had been a sensation in Europe back in the \'eighties. Ravenspur and the Countess were good enough friends now, and Mrs. Delahay was beginning to recover her health and strength again. Already the Fitzjohn Square murder had ceased to occupy public attention now that the tragedy had been solved, and there was no chance of the culprit being brought before an earthly tribunal. As to Cooney, he got off quite as lightly as he deserved. And there are always new sensations to follow the old.

"I think, on the whole, you had better remain here for the present," Ravenspur suggested. "You have the house on your hands for two months, and, really, it is a very pleasant place. Everybody is out of town for the present, and very few of my friends will be back in London again before the autumn. This will give us time to invent some plausible story to account for your reappearance. I don\'t like that kind of thing as a rule, but is is quite essential in this case."

"What are you going to do yourself?" the Countess asked.

"I am going to have a couple of quiet months on the continent. As you can imagine, my nerves are considerably shaken, and I am not so young as I used to be. I shall miss Vera, of course, but I think it is far better for her to stay here with you, so that you can get to know one another properly. But has it ever occurred to you, Countess, that before long Vera will have another and a closer guardian than either of our two selves?"

"I suppose that is inevitable," the Countess said as she looked thoughtfully across the flower-beds. "Still, the fault is my own. I deliberately wasted eighteen years, and it is hardly to be expected that Vera--but don\'t let us anticipate."

"I am afraid the mischief is done," Ravenspur smiled. "From a remark that Vera let slip the other night, I learnt a great deal that has been going on in her mind. Goodness knows how she got the impression, but she honestly believed that I was something more than her guardian, and that, between you and myself--but I mustn\'t pain you by being more definite. Anyway, I now know why Vera appeared to be so unhappy and miserable a few weeks ago, and why she conceived the idea of leaving my house, and going out into the world to get her own living. To make matters quite plain, she and my nephew have fallen in love with one another and she thought that I should oppose the match. As a matter of fact, I did. But not for the reasons that Vera supposed. What I was afraid of was that the vengeance intended for me might have been transferred to Walter, had he married Vera then. Of course, matters are on a totally different footing now, and nobody is more delighted than myself. Walter is a fine fellow. He will be rich some of these days. He will succeed to the title at my death. If I were you, Countess, I would not interfere with that arrangement."

"I am afraid it would be too late in any case," the Countess said, sadly. "I have no right to say a word. And, from what I have seen of your nephew, I should say that he will make a good husband for any girl. Still, it is rather a disappointment to find that I have been supplanted in this way, though I am bound to admit that the fault is entirely my own."

Ravenspur was quite content to leave it discreetly at that, and all the more so because Vera herself was at that moment coming down the garden path. The girl\'s face was bright and happy now. The look of trouble had vanished from her eyes. The sun was shining full in her face, and as the Countess regarded her daughter critically she could see no suggestion of her father in her face. As Lord Ravenspur moved away, Vera took her place by her mother\'s side.

"What have you two been plotting?" she asked gaily.

"We have been discussing your future," the Countess replied. "Lord Ravenspur has been telling me something which, apparently, I ought to have guessed before. I was looking forward to a year or two in your company, but I am told that that is more than I can expect. There is a certain young man----"

"You are speaking of Walter," Vera murmured. A little colour crept into her cheeks. Her eyes were bright and smiling. "Positively there has been no time to tell you about Walter. Do you know, mother, that Walter and myself have bee............