From some ambiguous words dropped by Miles in the cottage, and during Minnie's stay with them, it will be remembered that Skaife was impressed with the idea that Tremenhere had, as a boy probably, loved Mary Burns, who had been a _protegée_ of his mother's at the manor-house; and the curate also thought that the other was aware of her sad fate. For some time the silence was unbroken, then Miles, suddenly turning towards his companion, said, like one awakening from a dream, "Pardon me, Mr. Skaife, but I am an uncouth man, much alone, little in humanized society; my chief companions are stocks and stones, and the native inhabitants of wild nature; forgive me again, I had forgotten to thank you, which I do most sincerely, for your kindness to poor Mary Burns, and also to myself personally; few, indeed, would have had the courage to notice, and be thus publicly seen with one at so low a discount as I am in this neighbourhood." "Believe me sincere, when I assure you, Mr. Tremenhere," rejoined the other, "that from all I have heard, and now seen, no one can more truly deplore your misfortunes than I do." "Do you know them all?" "I think, I believe I do," hesitated the curate; he feared uttering something painful. "Do you know that for upwards of twenty-one years I was brought up at the manor-house, beloved by a father and mother, the best Heaven ever formed--oh! especially the latter; I can scarcely speak of her now." He paused, and seemed choking with emotion. "To be brief," he continued, after a pause, "in one year I lost all; she died first, my father soon followed her, and then, while my sorrow was still green, my cousin, Marmaduke Burton, put in a claim for the property, on the ground of my illegitimacy! I was stricken, I had not a word to offer, proof I had none to the contrary; my father's marriage had taken place, for _marriage there was_, at Gibraltar; my mother was Spanish, of not exalted parentage, I believe,--from thence sprung the great difficulty of proof. Only an obscure family to deal with, that ruffian Marmaduke gained all--the property was tied up until the event should be known; I had few wealthy friends--he, both friends and money. Most of my earlier days had passed in studies abroad; I came only at stated periods to my home--I was a stranger among my own countrymen;--he had secured himself allies (I will not call them friends, of these he could have none); he was assisted too, by a greater scamp than himself, a mean, cold-blooded villain of the name of Dalby. In my bewilderment, my horror, at _her_ name--my pure, holy mother's name--being dragged forward for public scorn, I lost all nerve and power; then too, I was poor,--the result you know. Mr. Skaife, I am a wanderer--_he_, in my halls; but all is not lost yet. I may find my way to sunlight, even like the blind mole." "And, Mr. Burton," asked the other, hesitatingly, "was he not a frequent visiter at the manor-house?"