‘I am not poor,’ he answered slowly; and I wondered where his money had come from. He had not been independent in the old days—far from it; for he had often talked to me of the necessity of his working to provide a home before he could take a wife to himself. Perhaps his father had died in the silent interim that stretched between the present and the past. Before I quite knew what I was about, I had asked the question: ‘Is your father alive still?’ ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’ ‘I don’t know. Merely for the sake of talking, I suppose. I am not above that womanly weakness.’ ‘I have thought, since I have been here, that you had got altogether above it. It seems as if I had hardly heard your voice: you are so unusually silent and reserved.’ ‘I have had a great sorrow, you must remember, Mr. Charteris, and I cannot yet laugh and talk as I used to do.’ ‘Ah, how you used to laugh in the old days! I fancy I can hear you now! Hilda, do you ever think of that time, and of the hours we spent wandering up and down the Crystal Palace Gardens together? How beautiful those gardens were! They have nothing like them abroad, unless we except the grounds at Versailles, after which, I believe, they were modelled.’ We were getting on dangerous ground now, and I felt it. I had no desire to renew anything like a sentimental flirtation with Mr. Charteris; the scar, which his past conduct had left upon my heart, though now painless, was too deep for trifling even with memory; and therefore I did my best to turn the conversation. ‘Ah, Versailles! I have never seen those gardens, though I have heard so much about them. I am a great ignoramus, Mr. Charteris, you must know, in all things connected with travel. This is actually the first time I have ever set my foot out of England!’ ‘So much the better! You have all your pleasure to come, instead of having exhausted before you know how to appreciate it. I can well imagine how an intelligent mind like yours will expand beneath the wonders of nature and art with which it has still to become acquainted. You are marvellously young and fresh for your age, Hilda.’ ‘You are the first person who has ever said so. I think, on the contrary, that I am marvellously old and used-up. To judge from my general feelings, I might be sixty.’ ‘Just at present I dare say you might. You must have felt your late loss terribly!’ My lip trembled, and I turned away from him. I could not have answered even ‘Yes’ at that moment without breaking down, and I would have died sooner than break down before Cave Charteris. ‘I can’t tell you what a shock it was to me to hear it!’ he went on softly. ‘It seemed to revive the past, and bring it back as if it had occurred only yesterday. She was always good and kind to me, and you too, Hilda—indeed, I used to dare to think at that time that you regarded me as a _very dear_ friend.’