“Mother, don’t be worried. But I can’t deny it; it’s true.” Poor Mrs. Abercarne was thunder-struck. If she had been told ten minutes before that it was possible for her Chris, her little girl, as she persisted in calling her, to be guilty of keeping a secret from her, she would have treated the idea with scorn. So that at the first moment she was absolutely at a loss for words, and could only murmur: “You, Chris! You!” with quite pathetic amazement and grief. As for John Bradfield, who stood near enough in the crush to catch the purport of their words, his amazement had given place to a great fear. He did not dare to ask any details concerning her correspondence; being deterred, not so much by the knowledge that he had no right to do so, as by an alarming suspicion as to the identity of the unknown lover. Fortunately the assembled guests were now beginning to carry out their long-felt wish to be gone; so Mrs. Abercarne and her daughter took advantage of the thinning of the crowd around them to make their escape also. Mrs. Graham-Shute was bidding her guests farewell with the bored look which comes of the consciousness of duty fulfilled. As she shook hands and listened to their stereotyped words of thanks, she expressed the hope that they had enjoyed themselves, though she might have known they hadn’t. Then they all trooped out, and drove or walked home, exchanging comments which would have taken the poor lady’s breath away, and made her forswear the world for its base ingratitude. CHAPTER XXVIII. NIGHT ALARMS. “Chris, what does this mean?” Wyngham House being so near, Mrs. Abercarne and her daughter had returned on foot. They had not exchanged a single word on the way. It was not until they had reached the Chinese-room, and had sat down before the fire there, that Mrs. Abercarne thus broke the silence portentously. Chris looked the picture of despair. The colour had again left her pretty cheeks; there were lines brought by anxiety in her fair young face; the tears were gathering in her eyes. And yet there was something comical in the look of resignation with which she deliberately sat down as soon as her mother had done so, determined to brave the matter out, and get her confession and her scolding over and done with. At her mother’s question, therefore, she drew a sigh which sounded like one of relief. “It means, mother dear,” she began, frankly, “that--oh! dear, I know you’ll be so angry! And it will worry you besides! I wish you wouldn’t ask me. You might take it for granted I haven’t done anything dreadful, nothing more than I used to do when I was twelve, when I used to find love letters from Willie Mansfield behind the scraper, and answer them in the holly-bush so that he might prick his fingers when he got them.” She ended with another sigh, as she rested her little round chin in her hand, and looked plaintively at the fire. But Mrs. Abercarne was not to be put off like this.