“Sir Alexis has something to say to you, Innocent. Give him your attention,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “and when you want me, you will find me in the dining-room. My poor dear child--God bless you!” cried the kind woman, and hurried away as if afraid to commit herself. Then it was the turn of Sir Alexis to advance, which he did, looking, as Innocent thought, strangely at her, as if he had something terrible to communicate. He, too, took her hand, and led her to the sofa, to the place from which Mrs. Eastwood had risen. “Innocent,” he said softly. She looked at him with scared and anxious eyes. She was not as she had been. Had she been asked whether she loved her relations, she would probably have stared at the questioner, and made no reply; but the thought of leaving them--of going out into the strange world--struck her with a sharp pang. “Am I to be sent away?” she cried; “is that what you have to tell me?” and a dull dread, which she could not struggle against, took possession of Innocent’s soul. “To be sent away! No, that is the last thing I could have to tell you,” he said, looking at her with something in his eyes which surprised her, which confused her; which, in her simplicity, she could not understand, yet felt moved by strangely. Her foolish terror died away. The faint vague smile, with which she had looked round at the falling leaves, came upon her face again. This smile was quite peculiar to Innocent. It moved some people almost to tears; and it frightened others. It was like the look of some one smiling in a dream. The smile altogether overpowered the old veteran and man of the world beside her. There was something in it half-imbecile, half-divine; and, indeed, Innocent stood at the very climax of these two extremes--almost a fool, almost the purest visionary development of womankind. In her present stage of being it seemed impossible to predict on which side the balance would drop. “Innocent,” he said very softly, and then made a pause; “I am as old as your father,” he added after a moment, in which he seemed to take breath. “Yes.” “As old as your father; and you are but a child--not a grown woman. Young in years, younger in mind----” “You say that because I am not clever,” said Innocent, with a look of pain. “No, indeed. I do not want you to be clever--not anything but what you are----”