"Mother dear, what is it?" she asked. "The name is only a coincidence--it's not such an uncommon name, after all--and besides--" "Oh, of course," said Mrs. Bowring, in a dull tone. "It's a mere coincidence--probably no relation. I'm nervous, to-day." Her manner seemed unaccountable to her daughter, except on the supposition that she was ill. She very rarely spoke of her first husband, by whom she had no children. When she did, she mentioned his name gravely, as one speaks of dead persons who have been dear, but that was all. She had never shown anything like emotion in connection with the subject, and the young girl avoided it instinctively, as most children, of whose parents the one has been twice married, avoid the mention of the first husband or wife, who was not their father or mother. "I wish I understood you!" exclaimed Clare. "There's nothing to understand, dear," said Mrs. Bowring, still very pale. "I'm nervous--that's all." Before long she left Clare by herself and went indoors, and locked herself into her room. The rooms in the old hotel were once the cells of the monks, small vaulted chambers in which there is barely space for the most necessary furniture. During nearly an hour Mrs. Bowring paced up and down, a beat of fourteen feet between the low window and the locked door. At last she stopped before the little glass, and looked at herself, and smoothed her streaked hair. "Nineteen and six--are twenty-five," she said slowly in a low voice, and her eyes stared into their own reflection rather wildly. CHAPTER V Brook Johnstone's people did not come on the next day, nor on the day after that, but he expressed no surprise at the delay, and did not again say that it was a bore to have to wait for them. Meanwhile he spent a great deal of his time with the Bowrings, and the acquaintance ripened quickly towards intimacy, without passing near friendship, as such acquaintance sometimes will, when it springs up suddenly in the shallow ground of an out-of-the-way hotel on the Continent. "For Heaven's sake don't let that man fall in love with you, Clare!" said Mrs. Bowring one morning, with what seemed unnecessary vehemence. Clare's lip curled scornfully as she thought of poor Lady Fan. "There isn't the slightest danger of that!" she answered. "Any more than there is of my falling in love with him," she added. "Are you sure of that?" asked her mother. "You seem to like him. Besides, he is very nice, and very good-looking." "Oh yes--of course he is. But one doesn't necessarily fall in love with every nice and good-looking man one meets."