To the address thus obtained by her--her uncle being now well on the road to recovery--Miss Baynard went next afternoon in a hackney-coach, accompanied by her maid.

Mr. McManus, a little, old, and very snuffy man, with a shrewd but kindly expression, readily furnished her with the information asked for, after Nell had introduced herself and told him for what purpose she wanted it.

"Ah, poor lass! I\'m sadly afraid she\'s not long for this world," remarked the old fellow with a melancholy shake of the head, in allusion to Dick\'s widow.

"Is she so ill as that?" queried Nell, thoroughly shocked.

"Aye, that is she. Long afore next year at this time the daisies\'ll be growin\' over her grave. She caught a chill last Christmas, and it settled on her chest, which was always delicate, and now--why now, as I say, all the doctors in the world couldn\'t set her on her feet again."

"I cannot tell you how grieved I am to hear this. And the boy--her child--what of him?"

"Oh, he\'s as right as a trivet. A famous young shaver, and no mistake. There\'s nothing the matter with him."

Miss Baynard drove direct from Holborn to the address given her, which was Lawn Cottage, Chelsea. There Marjory Cortelyon rented a couple of rooms, a middle-aged widow, Mrs. Mardin by name, being at once her landlady and her nurse.

Nell, having sent in her name, was presently admitted to the invalid\'s little sitting-room, with its pleasant outlook across a wide sweep of sunny meadows, long ago covered with bricks and mortar.

The ex-actress lay on a couch near the window, a frail figure, wasted by illness to little more than skin and bone. That she had been very pretty once on a time was still plainly evident, and in her large, lustrous eyes, sunken though they were, Nell read something which went direct to her heart. There had never been anything meretricious or tawdry about her, otherwise Dick Cortelyon would not have made her his wife. She had been good and pure, and, in her way, a lady.

Nell, after pausing on the threshold for a couple of seconds while she took in the scene, went quickly forward and, dropping on one knee by the couch, bent over and kissed the dying woman. Tears dimmed her eyes, and a few moments passed before a word would come. Indeed, Marjory was the first to speak. At the touch of Nell\'s lips her ivory cheeks flushed, and a lovely smile played for a few seconds round her mouth. "My Dick loved you very dearly, and no wonder," she said softly. "I have often longed to see you, and I\'m sure I shall die happier now that I have done so."

Nell\'s visit lasted upwards of an hour. She explained to Marjory how it happened that she had been unable either to communicate with her or to visit her before. Greatly to her disappointment, young Evan was from home, he having been taken into the country to spend a few days with a married sister of Marjory\'s, but Nell was told that if she chose to come again in a week\'s time he would then be back, and this she promised herself that she certainly would do.

By and by Nell said: "And now, Marjory dear, you must allow me to renew the offer made by me in the letter which failed to find you. Although you do not see your way to accept pecuniary help from Mr. Cortelyon, there is no reason in the world why you should not accept it from me, and I am quite sure that if poor dear Dick could speak to you from the grave he would agree with all I say. That he left you very poorly off, although through no fault of his own, I know full well. Therefore, I say again, why not----"

The sick woman held up one of her transparent hands. "You are kindness itself, Miss Baynard," she said, "and were I in want of help, you would be the first person to whom I would appeal; but I am not in want of anything. I have everything I need, and more, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Geoffrey Dare."

"Of Mr. Geoffrey Dare?" echoed Nell.

"Did Dick never speak of him to you?"

"Not to my knowledge; but you must remember that when Dick first came to London I was hardly out of the schoolroom, and that we saw very little of him at Stanbrook afterwards, before that last visit of all, with its unhappy ending."

"Well, my husband and Geoff Dare--we always used to call him and speak of him as \'Geoff\'--were like brothers (not that all brothers hit it off together by any means), and of all Dick\'s many fine friends he was the only that was in the secret of our wedding. It was a secret he told to nobody, and when Dick\'s father cast him off and hard times came, he remained just the same Geoff that he had always been; not the least bit of change did we ever find in him. Then, when my child was born, nothing would suit him but that he must stand godfather to it. All through Dick\'s illness, which lasted a matter of four months, he would leave his gayeties and engagements at the other end of the town--we were living at that time in a couple of rooms in Clerkenwell--and come two or three times a week to sit with him and cheer him up. And when all was over, it was his money that helped to bury my husband, and it was on his arm that I leaned as I stood by the grave-side--he and I by our two selves. Is there any one like him in the world, I wonder?"

She sank back exhausted; but a little wine and water which Miss Baynard proceeded to administer speedily revived her.

Then said Nell: "Judging from what you tell me, Mr. Dare must indeed be a friend among a thousand, and for what he has done for you and yours I honor and respect him. Now, however, that you and I have found each other, there is no reason why you should any longer burden his generosity. You and I, my dear Marjory, are cousins; Dick and I, as you know, loved each other like brother and sister; consequently, it is to me, and to me only, that you and Evan ought to look in time to come."

A faint smile, it might almost be termed a smile of amusement, lighted up the sick woman\'s face. "\'Tis very evident that you don\'t know Geoff Dare, or you would not talk like that," she said. "Why, merely for me to hint at such a thing would turn him into a thundercloud, and then there would be an explosion fit to bring the roof off. Oh, he has a fine temper of his own, I can tell you! And besides and worse than all, it would cut him to the quick, and that is what I would never be a party to doing. Then again, dear Miss Baynard, it isn\'t as if he was a poor man. In that case what you urge would bear twice thinking about. But Geoff is anything but poor, although--so Dick used to say--far over-fond of the gaming table and the race-course, like most young bucks of the da............