“We are on a pleasure trip. We--I beg your pardon. What have I been thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down.” She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen--No, I am wrong; it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen. “Are you ill?” I asked involuntarily. She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when she first saw them, that they looked like “burnt holes in a blanket.” Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me. “You have read my letter?” she asked. It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said simply that I had read the letter. “Then what do you propose?” she asked. “Propose?” “Yes,” impatiently. “What proposition do you make me? If you have read the letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the purpose of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?” I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason for my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped to consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But the blackguard was--was--well, he was not and never had been. In his place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I thought of her. I didn't know what to think. She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot, her impatience grew. Her brows--very dark brown they were, almost black against the pallor of her face--drew together and her foot began to pat the faded carpet. “I am waiting,” she said. I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which occurred to me. It was a question. “Your father is dead?” I asked. She nodded. “My letter told you that,” she answered. “He died in Paris three years ago.” “And--and had he no relatives here in England?” She hesitated before replying. “No near relatives whom he cared to recognize,” she answered haughtily. “My father, Mr. Knowles was a gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family, as well as by OTHERS”--with a marked emphasis on the word--“he did not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have commanded.” “Oh! Oh, I see,” I said, feebly. “There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son and--But this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be expected to understand English family customs. It is sufficient that, for reasons of his own, my father had for years been estranged from his own people.”