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274 he did clearly elicit in reply to his direct question; Alaric had no idea who was the present owner of his "Venetian Senator."

Though her cough was no better, Hatty appeared at breakfast; for, as she said, the sun was hot, and thoroughly warmed the dining-room; and she was sure it could do her no harm to come downstairs. Her real motives—curiosity, and reluctance that Elizabeth should appear, even momentarily, in a false position, as Alaric's companion—she did not reveal. In America such a chance would cause no animadversion; but she had been long enough on the Continent to know that here it was not so. This stranger mast not misjudge her friend or Alaric, which a Frenchman of Monsieur Melchior's stamp was so likely to do. She was nearer the truth than she imagined, poor little woman! and Elizabeth was possibly a gainer in consideration at the unscrupulous millionaire's hands.

Without her hat he thought her even handsomer than he had in Jacob's shop; her head, with its waving black hair, was so finely shaped, and rose so nobly from its stem. Nothing could be simpler than her dress, and she did not wear an ornament of any description, in notable contrast to the bejewelled ladies whose society he mostly frequented, and so many of whom fluttered round him at Monte Carlo.

She bowed gravely, without a gleam of recognition, as Alaric presented the gorgeous Jew to Miss Shaw, and suggested that she should sit between them at table. Hatty was coughing so much that it was better to place her on the other side of her brother, where she need not