‘The most,’ said I; ‘but I know it well. There was a great friend of mine who used to live here——’

She looked up suddenly.

‘Dick, do you mean,’ she asked, ‘who was killed in South Africa? He was a distant cousin of mine.’

‘Then his wife was, too?’ said I.

‘Yes, I believe so. Why?’

‘It partly accounts for it.’

‘Accounts for what?’ she said.

‘That you are absolutely the living image of her.’

She laughed again.

‘Oh dear! it is a terrible responsibility to be like an old acquaintance of somebody’s. I shall have to live up to her. I do hope she wasn’t very nice. It will be so difficult for me if she was.’