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 "Yes, Miss Carew. Mr. Cullen."

"Mr. Cullen? Oh! Oh! Which Mr. Cullen; you mean Mr. Bennet Cullen?"

"No, Miss Carew. Mr. Lucas Cullen, your grandfather."

Ethel shrank in the sudden constriction of dread that something had happened to Barney. In so far as it was based upon reason, it came from knowledge that, after her grandfather had disowned her at St. Florentin, he would never have sought her again except in triumph over her; and particularly when she was in the house of her who had been, in her life, his most bitter enemy.

Ethel had not known of his visiting this house before; and when she went out into the hall and encountered Mrs. Wain, she found the housekeeper agitated evidently by the same extraordinary circumstance.

"It is Mr. Lucas Cullen, Senior," Mrs. Wain repeated.

Ethel hastened down and found her grandfather, with his overcoat on and holding his hat in his gloved hand, standing in the center of the drawing-room and gazing critically about. Whatever his purpose was in seeking Ethel, it did not serve to keep his thoughts from his nephew's wife.

"Hideous place," he passed his judgment of Agnes's taste in decoration before deigning attention to his granddaughter. "Well!" he noticed her directly. "Well! Sit down!"

Ethel did not obey but continued to stand, asking him in turn to seat himself. If she had expected any marked change in him since her last combat with him at St. Florentin, she was disappointed; even his attire was the same, as he made not the slightest con-