She was a wreck. The agent had been right so far. But she was a beautiful wreck. The brilliant colouring was faded, the cheeks were hollow, the eyes haggard, but the perfect lines of the face were there; and Faunce saw that she had been beautiful, and also that when she was at her best she must have been curiously like Lady Perivale. In height, in figure, in the poise of the head, the modelling of the throat, she resembled her as a sister might have done.
She must have fallen upon evil days since her visit to Algiers—very evil days. There was the pinch of poverty in her aspect, in her tawdry morning wrapper, in the shabbily-furnished sitting-room.
"Pray don't be alarmed, madam. My business is not of an unpleasant nature."
"I want to know who and what you are!" she said in the same tone, half fear, half fury; "and how you had the cheek to march into my room without sending up your name first. Do you think because I'm in cheap lodgings I ain't a lady?"
"Your landlady told me to come upstairs, or I should not have taken that liberty. That is my name," handing her a card, which she snatched impatiently and looked at with a scowling brow. "I am engaged in the interests of a lady whose social position has suffered by her resemblance to you."
"What do you mean?"
"You were in Algiers last February with Colonel Rannock."
Her face lost colour, and her breathing quickened, as she answered—
"Well, what then?"
"You were seen by friends of my client, and mistaken for her, and the result was a scandal which has seriously affected that lady. Now, in the event of a libel suit, which is very likely to arise out of that scandal, it will be in your power to put matters straight by stepping into the witness-box, and stating that you were Colonel Rannock's travelling companion in Algiers, and Corsica, and Sardinia last winter. The lady will be in court, and the likeness between you and her will explain the mistake."