Chapter XXII
Lady Constantine flung down the old-fashioned lacework, whose beauties she had been pointing out to Swithin, and exclaimed, 'Who can it be? Not Louis, surely?' They listened. An arrival was such a phenomenon at this unfrequented mansion, and particularly a late arrival, that no servant was on the alert to respond to the call; and the visitor rang again, more loudly than before. Sounds of the tardy opening and shutting of a passage-door from the kitchen quarter then reached their ears, and Viviette went into the corridor to hearken more attentively. In a few minutes she returned to the wardrobe-room in which she had left Swithin. 'Yes; it is my brother!' she said with difficult composure. 'I just caught his voice. He has no doubt come back from Paris to stay. This is a rather vexatious, i
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