"I can see no one this morning," Lady Helena responded; "tell her so."
"My lady, excuse me; this lady said your ladyship would be sure to see her, if your ladyship would look at this note. It's the lady in mourning, my lady, who has been here to see your ladyship before. Which this is the note, my lady."
Lady Helena's face lit up eagerly now. She tore open the note at once.
"You may go, Nixon," she said. "Show the lady up immediately."
She ran over the few brief lines the note contained, with a look of unutterable relief. Like the letter, it was signed "Inez."
"Victor," she said, turning to her nephew and holding out her hand, "forgive me, if in my excitement and haste I have said what I should not. Give me a little time, and everything will be explained. The coming of In—this lady—is the most opportune thing in the world. You shall be told all soon."
"I am to understand then," Sir Victor said coldly, "that this stranger, this mysterious lady, is in your confidence; that she is to be received into mine—that she is to be consulted before you can tell me this secret which involves the happiness of my life?"
"Precisely! You look angry and incredulous, but later you will understand. She is one of our family—more at present I cannot say. Go, Victor; trust me, believe me, neither your honor nor your love shall suffer at our hands. Postpone the driving-party, or make my excuses; I shall not leave my rooms to-day. To-morrow, if it be possible, the truth shall be yours as well as mine."
He bowed coldly—annoyed, amazed, and went. What did all this mean? Up to the present, his life had flowed peacefully, almost sluggishly, without family secrets or mystifications of any kind. And now all at once here were secrets and mysteries cropping up. What was this wonderful secret—who was this mysterious lady? He must wait until to-morrow, it appeared, for the answer to both.
"One thing is fixed as fate," he said to himself as he left the room, "I won't give up Edith, for ten thousand family secrets—for all the mysterious ladies on earth! Whatever others may have done, I at least have done nothing to forfeit my darling's hand. The doctrine that would make us suffer for the sins of others, is a mistaken doctrine. Let to-morrow bring forth what it may, Edith Darrell shall be my wife."