M’Kinlay listened, and through the dull fog of his besotted faculties a faint nickering of light seemed struggling to pierce. The misanthrope at Arran--the once friend, now banished for ever--the name that never was to be uttered--the mystery to be kept from all--and then Georgina’s own sudden outburst of passion on the evening they parted, when he blundered out something about a reparation to Luttrell. All this, at first confusedly, but by degrees more clearly, passed in review before him, and he thought he had dropped upon a very black page of family history. Though the wine of which he had drank freely had addled, it had not overcome him, and, with the old instincts of his calling, he remembered how all important it is, when extracting evidence, to appear in fall possession of all the facts. “How, in the name of wonder, Sir Within,” said he, after a long pause--“how did it ever chance that this story reached you?” “Mr. M’Kinlay, my profession, like your own, has its secret sources of information, and, like you, we hear a great deal, and we believe very little of it.” “In the present case,” said M’Kinlay, growing clearer every minute, “I take it you believe nothing.” “How old is Miss O’Hara!” asked Sir William, quietly. “Oh, Sir Within, you surely don’t mean to----” “To what, Mr. M’Kinlay--what is it that I cannot possibly intend?” said he, smiling. “You would not imply that--that there was anything there?” said he, blundering into an ambiguity that might not commit him irretrievably. “Haven’t I told you, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay,” said he, with an air of easy familiarity, “that if I am somewhat sceptical, I am very charitable? I can believe a great deal, but I can forgive everything.” “And you really do believe this?” asked M’Kinlay. “Something of it; about as much as Mr. M’Kinlay believes Kate O’Hara is---- Let me see,” muttered he, half aloud; “I was at Stuttgard; it was the winter Prince Paul died; we had a court-mourning, and there were no festivities. The Legations received a few intimates, and we exchanged all the contents of our letters--that was sixteen or seventeen years ago; the young lady, I take it, is not far from fifteen.” “Good Heavens, Sir Within, you want to establish a distinct link between this story and the age of the young girl!” “That is too legal a view, Mr. M’Kinlay; we diplomatists deal in another fashion--we speculate, we never specify. We always act as if everything were possible, and nothing certain; and in our very uncertainty lies our greatest security.”