James Hubert John Fergus Saltyre never heard much of her, and barely knew of her past existence because in the picture gallery he had seen a portrait of a tall, thin, fretful-looking young lady, with light ringlets, and pearls round her neck.

She had not attracted him as a child, and the fact that he gathered that she had been his mother left him entirely unmoved.

She was not a loveable-looking person, and, indeed, had been at once empty-headed, irritable, and worldly.

He would probably have been no less lonely if she had lived.

Lonely he was.