THE person who now entered the room was Fanny Mere.

But one interest was stirring in the mind of Iris now. “Do you know where your master is?” she asked.

“I saw him go out,” the maid replied. “Which way I didn’t particularly notice —” She was on the point of adding, “and I didn’t particularly care,” when she checked herself. “Yesterday and to-day, my lady, things have come to my knowledge which I must not keep to myself,” the resolute woman continued. “If a servant may say such a thing without offence, I have never been so truly my mistress’s friend as I am now. I beg you to forgive my boldness; there is a reason for it.”

So she spoke, with no presumption in her looks, with no familiarity in her manner. The eyes of her friendless mistress filled with tears, the offered hand of her friendless mistress answered in silence. Fanny took that kind hand, and pressed it respectfully — a more demonstrative woman than herself might perhaps have kissed it. She only said, “Thank you, my lady,” and went on with what she felt it her duty to relate.

As carefully as usual, as quietly as usual, she repeated the conversation, at Lord Harry’s table; describing also the manner in which Mr. Vimpany had discovered her as a person who understood the French language, and who had cunningly kept it a secret. In this serious state of things, the doctor — yes, the doctor himself!— had interfered to protect her from the anger of her master, and, more wonderful still, for a reason which it seemed impossible to dispute. He wanted a nurse for the foreigner whose arrival was expected on that evening, and he had offered the place to Fanny. “Your ladyship will, I hope, excuse me; I have taken the place.”

This amazing end to the strange events which had just been narrated proved to be more than Iris was immediately capable of understanding. “I am in the dark,” she confessed. “Is Mr. Vimpany a bolder villain even than I have supposed him to be?”

“That he most certainly is!” Fanny said with strong conviction. “As to what he really had in his wicked head when he engaged me, I shall find that out in time. Anyway, I am the nurse who is to help him. When I disobeyed you this morning, my lady, it was to go to the hospital with Mr. Vimpany. I was taken to see the person whose nurse I am to be. A poor, feeble, polite creature, who looked as if he couldn’t hurt a fly —— and yet I promise you he startled me! I saw a likeness, the moment I looked at him.”

“A likeness to anybody whom I know?” Iris asked.

“To the person in all the world, my lady, whom you know most nearly — a likeness to my master.”

“What!”

“Oh, it’s no fancy; I am sure of what I say. To my mind, that Danish man’s likeness to my lord is (if you will excuse my language) a nasty circumstance. I don’t know why or wherefore —............