Chapter 1

A DOUBLE ENIGMA.

"I'm afraid that he won't come," said Laura McIntyre, in a disconsolate
voice.

"Why not?"

"Oh, look at the weather; it is something too awful."

As she spoke a whirl of snow beat with a muffled patter against the cosy
red-curtained window, while a long blast of wind shrieked and whistled
through the branches of the great white-limbed elms which skirted the
garden.

Robert McIntyre rose from the sketch upon which he had been working, and
taking one of the lamps in his hand peered out into the darkness. The
long skeleton limbs of the bare trees tossed and quivered dimly amid the
whirling drift. His sister sat by the fire, her fancy-work in her lap,
and looked up at her brothers profile which showed against the brilliant
yellow light. It was a handsome face, young and fair and clear cut,
with wavy brown hair combed backwards and rippling down into that
outward curve at the ends which one associates with the artistic
temperament. There was refinement too in his slightly puckered eyes,
his dainty gold-rimmed _pince-nez_ glasses, and in the black velveteen
coat which caught the light so richly upon its shoulder. In his mouth
only there was something--a suspicion of coarseness, a possibility of
weakness--which in the eyes of some, and of his sister among them,
marred the grace and beauty of his features. Yet, as he was wont
himself to say, when one thinks that each poor mortal is heir to a
legacy of every evil trait or bodily taint of so vast a line of
ancestors, lucky indeed is the man who does not find that Nature
has scored up some long-owing family debt upon his features.

And indeed in this case the remorseless creditor had gone so far as to
exact a claim from the lady also, though in her case the extreme beauty
of the upper part of the face drew the eye away from any weakness which
might be found in the lower. She was darker than her brother--so dark
that her heavily coiled hair seemed to be black until the light
shone slantwise across it. The delicate, half-petulant features, the
finely traced brows, and the thoughtful, humorous eyes were all perfect
in their way, and yet the combination left something to be desired.
There was a vague sense of a flaw somewhere, in feature or in
expression, which resolved itself, when analysed, into a slight
out-turning and droop of the lower lip; small indeed, and yet pronounced
enough to turn what would have been a beautiful face into a merely
pretty one. Very despondent and somewhat cross she looked as she leaned
back in the armchair, the tangle of bright-coloured silks and of drab
holland upon her lap, her hands clasped behind her head, with her snowy
forearms and little pink elbows