In the house in Great Walpole-street there was little change. Things went on in pretty much the same manner as when John Calverley was in the habit of creeping back to his dismal home with sorrow in his heart, or when Pauline sat watching and plotting in the solitude of her chamber. Since her second husband's death Mrs. Calverley seemed to have eschewed even the small amount of society which she had previously kept; the heavy dinner-parties were given up, and the only signs of so-called social intercourse were the fortnightly meetings of a Dorcas Club which was held under Mrs. Calverley's auspices, and at which several elderly ladies of the neighbourhood discussed tea and scandal under the pretence of administering to the necessities of the poor. At other times, the mistress of the house led a life which was eminently solitary and self-contained. She read occasionally, it is true; but when she called at the circulating library, she brought away with her, for her amusement or edification, no story in which, under the guise of fiction, the writer had endeavoured to portray any of the varieties of shifting human nature which had come beneath his ken; no poem glowing with passion and ardour, or sweetly musical with melodious numbers. Hard, strong books of travel through districts with immense unpronounceable names; tales of missionary enterprise set forth in the coldest, baldest, and least-educated style, relieved with frequent interpolations of theological phraseology; reviews which had once been potential, but whose feeble echoes Of former trumpet fanfarons now fell idly on inattentive ears; polemical discussions on religious questions, and priestly biographies--lives of small men, containing no proper precept, setting no worthy example--these were Mrs. Calverley's favourite reading. The butler declared that she read nothing at all; that though these books were brought from Mudie's on the back seat of the carriage, and were afterwards displayed on the drawing-room table, one at a time occupying the post of honour on his mistress's lap, she never so much as glanced at them, but sat staring with her steely blue eyes straight in front of her; a state of things which, rigorously persisted in, afflicted the butler, on his own statement, with a disease known to him as 'the creeps,' and which was considered generally so uncanny throughout the lower regions, that had not the wages been good and the table liberal, the whole household would have departed in a body.
 
About four o'clock on a dull afternoon in the very early spring, Mrs. Calverley was seated in her drawing-room in that semi-comatose state which inspired her domestics with so much terror. Some excuse, however, was to be made for her not attempting, on the present occasion, to read the book which lay idly in her lap, the time being 'between the lights,' as the phrase goes, when the gathering gloom of light, aided by the ever-present thickness of the London atmosphere, blots out the sun's departing rays before the time recorded in the almanac. It was very seldom, indeed, that Mrs. Calverley suffered her thoughts to dwell upon any incident of her immediately passed life. On what had happened during her girlhood, when she was the spoiled and petted heiress, on certain episodes in the career of jolly George Gurwood, her first husband, in which she had borne a conspicuous part, she was in the habit of bestowing occasional remembrances; but all that concerned her later life she wilfully and deliberately shut out from her mind. And this not from any sting of conscience, for Mrs. Calverley considered herself far too immaculate to be open to any such vulgar, consideration, but, as she said to herself, because everything of that kind was too near to allow her to form an impartial judgment upon it. It chanced, however, that upon this particular day, the deceased John Calverley had been frequently present to his widow's recollection. There was nothing extraordinary in this; it arose from the fact that that very morning, in looking through the contents of an old trunk which had long since been consigned to the lumber-room, Mrs. Calverley had come upon an old fly-blown water-colour drawing of a youth with a falling linen collar, a round jacket, and white-duck trousers, a drawing which bore some faint general resemblance to John even as she remembered him. Pondering over this work of art in a dreamy fashion, Mrs. Calverley found herself wondering whether her late husband's mental condition in youth had been as frank and ingenuous as that to be gathered from his physical portrait; and, secondly, whether she had not either faultily misapprehended or wilfully misconstrued that mental and moral condition even during the time that she had been acquainted with him. Two or three times later in the day her mind had wandered to the same topic, and now, as she sat in the dull drawing-room in the failing light, her thoughts were full on him. It was pleasant, she remembered, though she had not thought so at the time, to be looking forward in expectation of his return home at a certain hour; pleasant to know that he would probably be detained beyond the appointed time, thereby giving her opportunity for complaint; pleasant to have some one to vent her annoyance upon who would feel it so keenly, and reply to it so little. She had not hitherto looked at her loss from this point of view, and she was much struck by the novelty of it; though she had never had any opinion of Mr. Calverley, she was willing to admit that he was not absolutely bad-hearted; nay, there were times when--
 
Her reverie was interrupted by the entrance of the butler, who announced that a young lady was below desiring to speak to Mrs. Calverley.
 
'A lady! What kind of a lady?'
 
'A--a widow, mum,' replied the butler, pointing in an imbecile way, first at Mrs. Calverley's cap, and then at his own head.
 
'Ah,' said Mrs. Calverley, with a deep groan, and shaking her head to and fro--for she never missed an opportunity of making capital out of her condition before the servants--'one who has known grief; eh, James? And she wants to see me?'
 
'Asked first if you lived here, mum, and then was very particular in wishing to see you. A pleasant-spoken young woman, mum, and not like any begging-letter impostor, or coves--or people I mean--of that sort.'
 
'You can light the gas, James, and then show the lady up. No, stay; show her up at once, and do not light the gas until I ring.'
 
Since she had known Madame Du Tertre, Mrs. Calverley had taken some interest in her own personal appearance, and not having seen her toilet-glass since the morning, she had an idea that she might have become somewhat-dishevelled.
 
The butler left the room, and presently returned, ushering in a lady who, so far as Mrs. Calverley could make out in the uncertain light, was young, of middle height, and dressed in deep mourning.
 
The mistress of the mansion motioned her visitor to a seat, and making a stiff bow said:
 
'You wish to speak to me, I believe?'
 
'I wish to speak with Mrs. Calverley.'
 
'I am Mrs. Calverley. What is your business?'
 
'Your--your husband died recently?'
 
'About six months ago. How very curious! What is your object in asking these questions?'
 
'Bear with me, pray! Do not think me odd; only answer me what I ask you--my reasons for wishing you to do so are so urgent.'
 
'The lady's voice was agitated, her manner eager and unusual. Mrs. Calverley did not quite know what to make of her visitor. She might be a maniac, but then why her interest in the deceased Mr. Calverley? Another, and to her idea, a much more likely explanation of that mystery arose in Mrs. Calverley's mind. Who was this hussy who was so inquisitive about other women's husbands? She should like to see what the bold-faced thing looked like. And she promptly rang the bell to summon James to light the gas.
 
'You will answer me--will you not?' said the pleading voice.
 
'It depends upon what you ask,' replied Mrs. Calverley with a smile.
 
'Tell me then--Mr. Calverley--your husband--was he very fond of you?'
 
The few scattered bristles which did duty as Mrs. Calverley's eyebrows rose half an inch nearer her forehead with astonishment.
 
'Yes,' she replied after a moment's reflection; 'of course he was--devoted.'
 
Something like a groan escaped from the stranger.
 
'And you--you loved him?'
 
'Very much in the same way,' said Mrs. Calverley, feeling herself for the first time in her life imbued with a certain amount of grim humour--'quite devoted to him.'
 
'Yes,' said the visitor sadly, 'that I can fully understand. Did you ever see or hear of his partner, Mr. Claxton?'
 
'I never saw him,' said Mrs. Calverley; 'I've heard of him often enough, oftener than I like. It was he that persuaded Mr. Calverley to going into that speculation about those iron-works which Mr. Jeffreys can make nothi............