So passed that summer and when the weather showed signs of becoming a little cooler Adelaide suggested that we take another trip to Melbourne. There were several things she wanted; it was easy to get them brought to the house because one of her father’s businesses supplied goods to the small shops and traders on the gold fields but as Adelaide said, it was a luxury to choose for oneself from a large selection. We could put up at The Lynx and this time, as I was accustomed to the country and was now a very creditable horsewoman, we might ride and I could try camping out, which was often more convenient than waiting on the Cobb coaches. Stirling could accompany us and there should be another man of the party. Someone would certainly have business in Melbourne and wish to join us.

During the summer evenings I had played chess with Lynx several times, he invariably displayed a rattier sardonic amusement because he knew how desperately I wanted to beat him. It had become rather an obsession with me and it was typical of our relationship. I had always wanted to show him that I was not in awe of him; perhaps the fact that I continually stressed this showed that I was.

But those evenings in the library with the rose-quartz lamp beside us throwing its rosy glow over the chessmen had become part of my life. I found a certain content in sitting there, watching those long artistic hands with the green jade signet ring. I would grow tense with excitement when I could see him checkmated in a few moves, but he was always ready with some devastating counter movement which turned my attack into defence. I would look up and find those magnetic eyes on me, full of mocking laughter, brilliant with pleasure because he always enjoyed showing me that however I tried to outwit him, he would always win in the end.

“Not this time, Nora,” he would say.

“What a pity. They are such unusual pieces. Look at this castle. So delicately formed. And when you win, you will still play with me, won’t you? [ should not like the games to cease just because the set has changed hands.”

I began to learn more and more of him; in fact there were times when he seemed to lift that invincible barrier which he had erected round himself. When it was there he was the Lynx, proud, invulnerable, all powerful. But it could be lifted and in some way I had found a means of doing it. It had begun when he had shown me the fetters on his wrists; and then there was the time when he showed me his pictures.

I was a little early going to the library for our game because my watch was ten minutes fast. I knocked but there was no answer so I went in. He was not there, but a curtain on one side of the room had been drawn back to show a door, and this stood ajar. I had not known that there was a door there.

I stood for a while in the room. I had never seen it when he was not there and it was surprising how his absence changed it. It was now an ordinary room—pleasantly furnished, it was true, with its thick rugs and heavy velvet curtains, strong oak chairs and the books lining the wall. A library which one would find in any English country house! On the oak table stood the chess set in readiness for our game.

I crossed the room and looked through the open door. He was there but he did not see me immediately. On a table before him were several canvases and I remembered then what Jessica had told me about the picture of himself which he had set up to make the aborigines afraid of him.

He glanced up and saw me.

“Why, Nora,” he said, ‘is it time? “

“I am a little early. My watch is fast.”

He hesitated—something I had rarely seen him do before. Then he said:

“Come in.”

So I went in. On an easel stood a canvas and on a chair lay a paint-spattered jacket.

“This is my sanctum,” he told me.

“Have I intruded?”

“On the contrary, you are here on my invitation.”

“You are a painter.”

“Is that a question?”

“No. I know it.”

“Are you surprised? You did not expect me to have such talents?

Perhaps you consider I have no talent. Judge for yourself. “

He linked his arm through mine; it was the first time there had been any demonstration of affection.

“These pictures on the walls are my work,” he said.

“Then you are an artist.”

“You are not a connoisseur—that much is evident.”

“But these pictures …”

“Lack form, technique, or whatever you like to call it. They are not really very good.”

I had paused before a portrait of a woman. I thought I had seen the face before.

“Well, you like that?”

“Yes. It’s soft and gentle and the expression is … good.”

“What were you going to say before good?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps that she looked helpless, clinging, entirely feminine.”

He nodded and drew me to the next picture.

“Self-portrait.”

There he was. It was a good likeness and I guessed he was an easy subject. The mane of fair hair, the beard, the pride in the expression, and the animal quality—all these would be easy to capture in a facile way. Some of the arrogant power of the man was missing, but that was inevitable.

Then he took me to the table and showed me the canvases there. I saw it. The house. The real Whiteladies. The one Stirling and I had seen when we climbed the oak trees.

I gave an exclamation.

“That’s it,” I said.

“You went there with Stirling,” he replied.

“He told me how your scarf blew over the wall and you both went in..”

‘I suppose he tells you everything. “

“Whoever tells everything? But I know a great deal of what is in Stirling’s mind. After all, he is my son.”

“And you love him as you never loved anyone else.”

“That’s not entirely true. I am capable of affection. I don’t give it freely, but that may mean that when I do I have the more to give.”

“How could you paint that house when you have never seen it?”

“Who said I have never seen it? I have lived in that house, Nora. I know it well.”

“You lived there! It was yours! So that is why you have built one to look exactly like it.”

“What conclusions you jump to. I lived there, it is true; but I did not say that it was mine. I worked there for a year in the humble position of drawing-master to the young lady of the house. “

“And Stirling happened to discover it …”

“You are wrong again. Stirling went there because he knew the house was there. I told him to go.”

“So that was why I had to meet him in Canterbury. Miss Emily Grainger said it was a lit tie odd.”

“It was at my request that he went there.”

“You wanted to know if it had changed since you were last there.

Houses don’t change much. It’s the people living in them . “

“Ah, there you have it. I wanted him to see not so much the house but the people living in it.”

“Because you knew them long ago. He did not say so. He didn’t even tell them his name. I don’t think they asked. It was all a little odd and unconventional.”

“He would not have told them his name. That might have been unwise.”

“There was some quarrel with this family?”

He laughed bitterly, harshly. Then he said.

“I was hardly in a position to quarrel with them. I was, as I said, the young lady’s drawing-master. They were rich then. I don’t think they are so happily placed now. Times change. The old man was a gambler … and not a clever one. I believe he lost a great deal of money after my departure. “

“A fact which appears to give you some satisfaction, I gather.”

“You gather correctly. Would you not dislike someone who condemned you to exile from your own country, to seven years’ servitude in a penal settlement.”

“So it was the owner of Whiteladies!’ ” Sir Henry Dorian, no less. “

“For what reasons?”

Robbery. “

“And you were guiltless.”

“Completely so.”

“And could you not prove your innocence?”

“If I had had justice, yes. But he and his friends saw that [ had not.

I was in his house unlawfully, he said. I was in his house and not at his request, but the object of my visit was not to steal. ” He smiled at me.

“You have an enquiring mind, Nora,” he added lightly.

“I admit it. I want to hear more. I remember the place so clearly. I felt when I was there it was important to me in some way. I had no idea at that time that it was connected with my new guardian.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“A wonderful old place. How I should like to own such a house!” His eyes gleamed with covetousness.

“I have built this place—a poor imitation. No! I want the stones which were used hundreds of years before. There is only one Whiteladies and it is not this one.”

“You have a very comfortable house of the same name.”

“It’s a fake, Nora. I hate fakes.”

“It serves well.”

“It serves as a substitute until …” He stopped. Then he laughed and added, “You wheedle, Nora. You lure confidences from me. And the fact that I allow you to, shows you that I already think of you as my daughter. Now isn’t that strange? I am not a sentimental man to drool over a daughter—yet I allow you to tempt me to talk.”

“It is always good to talk. I am your ward. I have seen this house and the people there. There was the girl, Minta her name was, and there was Mamma.”

“Tell me about her. Stirling could not describe her. Women are better at that sort of thing than men.”

“Why, Mamma would be the one to whom you taught drawing!”