"You are from Gloucestershire, I think I have heard," he observed to me. "No; from Worcestershire." "Worcestershire? That's a nice county, I believe. Are not the Malvern Hills situated in it?" "Yes. They are eight miles from Worcester." "I should like to see them. I must see them before I go back. And Worcester is famous for--what is it?--china?--yes, china. And for its cathedral, I believe. I shall get a day or two there if I can. I can do Malvern at the same time." "Captain Collinson, would you mind giving Lady Jenkins your arm?" cried Mrs. Knox at this juncture. "She is going home." "There is no necessity for Captain Collinson to disturb himself: I can take good care of Lady Jenkins," hastily spoke Madame St. Vincent, in a tart tone, which the room could not mistake. Evidently she did not favour Captain Collinson. But the captain had already pushed himself through the throng of people and taken the old lady in tow. The next minute I found myself close to Charlotte Knox, who was standing at the supper-table, with a plate of cold salmon before her. "Are you a wild bear, Johnny Ludlow?" she asked me privately, under cover of the surrounding clatter. "Not that I know of. Why?" "Madame St. Vincent takes you for one." I laughed. "Has she told you so?" "She has not told me: I guess it is some secret," returned Charlotte, beginning upon the sandwiches. "I learnt it in a curious way." A vein of seriousness ran through her half-mocking tone; seriousness lay in her keen and candid eyes, lifted to mine. "Yes, it was rather curious, the way it came to me: and perhaps on my part not altogether honourable. Early this morning, Johnny, before ten o'clock had struck, mamma made me go in and ask how Lady Jenkins was, and whether she would be able to come to-night. I ran in the nearest way, by the glass-doors, boisterously of course--mamma is always going on at me for that--and the breeze the doors made as I threw them open blew a piece of paper off the table. I stooped to pick it up, and saw it was a letter just begun in madame's handwriting." "Well?" "Well, my eyes fell on the few words written; but I declare that I read them heedlessly, not with any dishonourable intention; such a thought never entered my mind. 'Dear Sissy,' the letter began, 'You must not come yet, for Johnny Ludlow is here, of all people in the world; it would not do for you and him to meet.' That was all." "I suppose madame had been called away," continued Charlotte, after a pause. "I put the paper on the table, and was going on into the passage, when I found the room-door locked: so I just came out again, ran round to the front-door and went in that way. Now if you are not a bear, Johnny, why should you frighten people?" I did not answer. She had set me thinking. "Madame St. Vincent had invited a sister from France to come and stay with her: she does just as she likes here, you know. It must be she who is not allowed to meet you. What is the mystery?"