“See here, Mr. Warden,” he said suddenly, crossing the room to him, “I may seem impertinent to you in what I am about to ask, but I have a real reason for asking the question. I loved your daughter living (God knows how truly) and I love her dead. If she had lived she might never have been my wife—who can tell—but her good name, dead as she is, is as dear to me as though she had been. Will you tell me—I ask it as a great favour—why you had inscribed on her tomb a name so different to the one we were accustomed to know her by?” “It was her right name, the one she was christened,” said Mr. Warden dreamily, his thoughts still far away and his eyes looking beyond his book. Then Lord Hardcastle summoned together all his courage, and making a great effort asked the one question which had occupied his mind through so many sorrowful days, and to which, indeed, his former question was but intended to lead the way. “Mr. Warden, tell me one thing else, I beg of you; indeed it is not from idle curiosity I ask it, was Aimée the name of Miss Warden’s mother?” At these words Mr. Warden visibly started, and his face grew ashy pale; then controlling himself with an effort, he replied “Mrs. Warden’s name was Helen, I thought you knew.” “Yes, I knew that; forgive me, Mr. Warden, if my conduct seem grossly impertinent to you. I know I have not the slightest right to ask these questions, but if you think I have in any way been to you as a son through these long sorrowful days, as a son I beg for the confidence of my father.” “A son! ah, you have indeed been to me as a son in my affliction! But you are probing old wounds now, my young friend, and asking for a story sadder than the one you know already, because there is sin and crime mixed up in it.” There was a pause, neither spoke for some minutes. Mr. Warden shaded his face with both hands, and his thoughts wandered back to his bright young days when sorrow seemed a far-away thing and death a hideous impossibility. The long sorrowful years that had since come and gone, faded from his memory; he no longer saw the room where he sat, nor even his companion, and rushing back upon him in full force came the recollection of young, strong passions, early hopes and fears, bright sunshiny hours when life was better worth having than it now was.