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Rh "He seemed to look at one so uncomfortably," she agreed. "I couldn't help feeling he had something on his mind against me, though I suppose he really doesn't trouble his head about my existence."

"I'm hanged if I like the way he looks at me!" muttered the baronet, and once again Cicely caught that odd expression in his eye.

That afternoon Bisset informed Miss Farmond that her ladyship desired to see her. Lady Cromarty's face looked thinner than ever and her lips more tightly compressed. In her deep mourning and with her grave air, she seemed to Cicely a monumental figure of tragedy. Her thinness and pallor and tight lips, she thought only natural, but there was one note that seemed discordant with pure desolation. The note was sounded by Lady Cromarty's eyes. At all times they had been ready to harden upon an occasion, but Cicely thought she had never seen them as hard as they were now.

"What are your plans, Cicely?" she asked in a low, even voice that showed no feeling one way or the other.

"I have begun to pack already," said the girl. "I don't want to leave so long as I can be of any use here, but I am ready to go at any time."

She had expected to be asked where she was going, but Lady Cromarty instead of putting any question, looked at her for a few moments in silence. And it was then that a curious uncomfortable feeling began to possess the girl. It had