Alpine's trepidation had somewhat unnerved her mother, and as she swept into the little room her air was a trifle less haughty, and her proud eyes gazed anxiously about for the cause of this commotion.
There he lay, sprawled upon a luxurious sofa—an old, blear-eyed man in ragged garments, but with a very close-shaven head, and the stubble of several days' growth upon his chin. His keen, close-set eyes devoured with a hungry gaze the handsome face before him.
A cry of surprise and terror burst from her blanching lips:
"George!—George Harrison!—you!"
"Yes, George Harrison—your husband!" answered the intruder, and a hoarse cry of despair broke upon the air from the lips of Alpine, who had glided in unheeded by both.
She stood behind her mother, gazing with affrighted eyes at the man's coarse, leering face.
Mrs. Carew recoiled—she threw out her white hands, all glittering with costly rings, as though to shut out some terrible sight.
The man laughed at her terror and, gliding forward, seized and held her hands.
"Are you glad to see me, my wife? Come, give me a kiss for the old times' sake, my beauty!"
She struggled with him, loathing the offered caresses, and Alpine sprung to her mother's assistance, beating him back with dainty jeweled hands.