At three o'clock Mr Grey was announced, and Lady Macleod, alone, received him in her drawing-room.

She had intended to give him a great deal of good advice, to bid him still keep up his heart and as it were hold up his head, to confess to him how very badly Alice was behaving, and to express her entire concurrence with that theory of bodily ailment as the cause and origin of her conduct.

But she found that Mr Grey was a man to whom she could not give much advice.

It was he who did the speaking at this conference, and not she.

She was overawed by him after the first three minutes.