
the smoking-room, he would retire to the big, book-lined chamber, and
plunge into the work, often difficult and tedious, which the nation
expected of him.

Usually during the half hour before dinner some of the guests would
assemble in the great, brown, old room to gossip, and the cosy-corner
beside the big wood fire was a favourite resting-place of Muriel's.  She
generally dressed early, and with one or other of the younger men would
sit there and chat until the dinner-bell sounded.  The fine old chamber,
with its overmantel bearing the three water-bougets argent, its lining
of books, and its oaken ceiling was quiet and secluded from the rest of
the house, the ideal refuge of a studious man.

Dudley, having occasion to enter there on the second evening following
his conversation with Claudia, related in the foregoing chapter, found
Sir Henry's ward sitting alone in the cosy-corner, half hidden by the
draperies.  The light from the green-shaded lamp, insufficient to
illuminate the whole place, only revealed the table with its piles of
papers, but upon her face the firelight danced, throwing her countenance
into bold relief.  As she sat there in her pale-blue dress she made a
picture of a most contenting sort.

"What! alone!" he exclaimed pleasantly as he advanced to meet her,
settling his dress-tie with his hand, for he had just come in from a
drive and had slipped into his clothes hurriedly.

"Yes," she laughed, stretching forth her small foot coquettishly upon
the red Turkey rug before the fire.  "You men are so long making your
toilette; and yet you blame us for all our fal-lals."

"Haven't you been out?"

"Yes," she answered; "I went this afternoon into Shrewsbury with Lady
Richard to do some shopping.  What a curious old town it is!  I've never
been there before, and was most interested."

"True it's old-fashioned, and far behind the times, Miss Mortimer," he
said, smiling, as he stood before her, his back to the fire.  "But I
always thought that you did not care for the antique."

"The antique!  Why, I ado