He sank on to a chair as one who had been dealt a crushing blow. Nora's bearing was frigid; the stranger's unexpected question had touched in her a chord of memory which hurt her more than she would have cared to say. She returned to Mr. Hooper. "Can you tell me what that sentence is? One or two of the words seem quite illegible." He explained, to the best of his ability, which was not much greater than hers. When she had gone back to her own apartment, Mr. Hooper said to his visitor, with what was possibly meant to be an air of politeness-- "May I venture to inquire if that is how you generally behave when you're introduced to a lady, Frank? because if it is I shall know better than to attempt to introduce you to another." Mr. Clifford's reply was remarkable. "I told you that when I first saw her I felt as if I had seen a ghost; now I know my instinct was right; I have seen a ghost. If you knew--what I know, and had had to go through what I've had to go through, and still have to go through, you would understand how meeting Donald Lindsay's daughter like this makes it seem to me as if the hand of God had been stretched out of the skies." CHAPTER XXIV MR. MORGAN'S EXPERIENCES OF THE UNEXPECTED It was a shock to Mr. Morgan when he learnt that Miss Harding had quitted Cloverlea without a word to him. At first he could not believe that she had gone; that she could have gone without his knowledge. When belief was forced on him his language was unbecoming. While he was engaged in little matters of a sort which demanded privacy, and which had to do with the safe storage of certain articles which he had brought himself to believe were his own property, a wagonette arrived at the front door, which, the driver explained to the footman who appeared, had come to fetch Miss Harding. The footman, with the aid of a colleague, had borne the young lady's belongings down the stairs; for which she liberally recompensed them with a sovereign apiece; and she and her possessions were safely away before Mr. Morgan had a notion she was going. Mr. Morgan abused the footmen for not having said a word to him; which abuse they, having no longer the fear of him before their eyes, returned in kind. The butler had to console himself as best he could. "Given me the slip, have you, Miss Harding?" That was what he said to himself. "Very well, my dear, we'll see; I'm not so easily got rid of as you may perhaps suppose. You're a pretty darling, upon my Sam you are!"