It is a duty I owe to myself as a man, which I owe still more to my murdered father.' 'Have you come all the way from London, and in such weather, only to tell me this story ?' She had twisted his card between her fingers as she listened to him, and now, with an action at once careless and contemptuous, she flung it upon the burning logs.

Slight as the action was it was eloquent of scorn for the man.
'No, Lady Maulevrier, my mention of this story, with which you are no doubt perfectly familiar, is only a preliminary.

I have come to claim my own, and to appeal to you as a woman of honour to do me justice.

Nay, I will say as a woman of common honesty; since there is no nice point of honour in question, only the plain laws of mine and thine, which I believe are the same among all nations and creeds.

I come to you, Lady Maulevrier, to ask you to restore to me the wealth which your husband stole from my father.' 'You come to my house, to me, an old woman, helpless, defenceless, in the absence of my grandson, the present Earl, to insult me, and insult the dead,' said Lady Maulevrier, white as statuary marble, and as cold and calm.