"You amaze me! I always heard my poor uncle speak of you in the highest terms." "Oh, well, it don't signify; pray say no more of it. Can I offer your lordship a glass of wine?" "No, I am much obliged to you; but we really must set this little matter right. You know that after his marriage my uncle never revisited C-----; and that shortly before his death he sold the greater part of his interest in this city. His young wife, I suppose, liked the neighbourhood of London; and when elderly gentlemen _do_ marry, you know they are no longer their own masters; but if you had ever come to Fulham--ah! then, indeed, my uncle would have rejoiced to see his old friend." "Your lordship thinks so," said Mr. Winsley with a sardonic smile. "You are mistaken; I did call at Fulham; and though I sent in my card, Lord Vargrave's servant (he was then My Lord) brought back word that his lordship was not at home." "But that must have been true; he was out, you may depend on it." "I saw him at the window, my lord," said Mr. Winsley, taking a pinch of snuff. "Oh, the deuce! I'm in for it," thought Lumley.--"Very strange, indeed! but how can you account for it? Ah, perhaps the health of Lady Vargrave--she was so very delicate then, and my poor uncle lived for her--you know that he left all his fortune to Miss Cameron?" "Miss Cameron! Who is she, my lord?" "Why, his daughter-in-law; Lady Vargrave was a widow,--a Mrs. Cameron." "Mrs. Cam--I remember now,--they put Cameron in the newspapers; but I thought it was a mistake. But, perhaps" (added Winsley, with a sneer of peculiar malignity),--"perhaps, when your worthy uncle thought of being a peer, he did not like to have it known that he married so much beneath him." "You quite mistake, my dear sir; my uncle never denied that Mrs. Cameron was a lady of no fortune or connections,--widow to some poor Scotch gentleman, who died I think in India." "He left her very ill off, poor thing; but she had a great deal of merit, and worked hard; she taught my girls to play--" "Your girls! did Mrs. Cameron ever reside in C-----?" "To be sure; but she was then called Mrs. Butler--just as pretty a name to my fancy." "You must make a mistake: my uncle married this lady in Devonshire." "Very possibly," quoth the brewer, doggedly. "Mrs. Butler left the town with her little girl some time before Mr. Templeton married." "Well, you are wiser than I am," said Lumley, forcing a smile. "But how can you be sure that Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Cameron are one and the same person? You did not go into the house, you could not have seen Lady Vargrave" (and here Lumley shrewdly guessed--if the tale were true--at the cause of his uncle's exclusion of his old acquaintance).