As Serena expected, the Marquis was sitting at the table writing. Very softly, so as to surprise him, she pushed open the door and entered the library. Then she came on tiptoe down the three steps that led into the room and, as she reached the floor, she said,
“Good evening, my Lord.”
She thought for a moment that in her white dress and with the deep shadows around her she must look almost like a ghost and she was not unprepared to hear the exclamation which came from the Marquis’s lips as he raised his head.
But as she looked at his face full in the candlelight, it was for her to exclaim.
Sitting at the desk was not the old Marquis, but Justin!
For a moment they stared at each other and then Justin rose to his feet and in a voice startled out of its usual complacency he asked,
“What
