at all,--that there never was a husband. In fact my mother has
very strong convictions on the subject. But my mother intends to
visit her all the same."

"She does? Lady Fulkeward has decided on that? Oh, well, in THAT
case!"--and Sir Chetwynd expanded his lower-chest air-balloon. "Of
course, Lady Chetwynd Lyle can no longer have any scruples on the
subject. If Lady Fulkeward visits the Princess there can be no
doubt as to her actual STATUS."

"Oh, I don't know!" murmured Lord Fulkeward, stroking his downy
lip. "You see my mother's rather an exceptional person. When the
governor was alive she hardly ever went out anywhere, you know,
and all the people who came to our house in Yorkshire had to bring
their pedigrees with them, so to speak. It was beastly dull! But
now my mother has taken to 'studying character,' don'cher know;
she likes all sorts of people about her, and the more mixed they
are the more she is delighted with them. Fact, I assure you! Quite
a change has come over my mother since the poor old governor
died!"

Ross Courtney looked amused. A change indeed had come over Lady
Fulkeward--a change, sudden, mysterious and amazing to many of her
former distinguished friends with "pedigrees." In her husband's
lifetime her hair had been a soft silver-gray; her face pale,
refined and serious; her form full and matronly; her step sober
and discreet; but two years after the death of the kindly and
noble old lord who had cherished her as the apple of his eye and
up to the last moment of his breath had thought her the most
beautiful woman in England, she appeared with golden tresses, a