The relationship of the human inhabitants of the little chamber would not have been easy to guess. The elder, seated on a cushioned bench by the fire, was one whose apparent age was forty or perhaps rather more. She was a woman of extremely dark complexion, her hair jet-black, her eyes scarcely lighter--a woman who had once been very handsome, and whose lost youth and beauty now and then seemed to flash back into her face, when eagerness, anger, or any other strong feeling lent animation to her features. The other was a young man about half her years, and as unlike her as he well could be. His long flaxen hair waved over a brow as white as hers was dark, and his eyes were a light clear blue. He sat on a stool in front of the fire, gazing into the charred wooden embers with intent fixed eyes. The woman had glanced at him several times, but neither had spoken for above half an hour. Now she broke the silence. "Well, Ralph?" "Well, Mother?" echoed the youth with a smile. Both spoke in German--a language then as unfamiliar in England as Persian. "What are you thinking about so intently?" "Life," was the ready but unexpected answer. "Past, present, future?" "Past and future--hardly present. The past chiefly--the long ago." The woman moved uneasily, but did not answer. "Mother, if I am of age to-day, I think I have the right to ask you a few questions. Do you accord it?" "Ah!" she said, with a deep intonation. "I knew it would come some time. Well! what is to be must be. Speak, my son." The young man laid his hand affectionately on hers. "Had it not better come?" he said. "You would not prefer that I asked my questions of others than yourself, nor that I shut them in my own soul, and fretted my heart out, trying to find the answer." "I should prefer any suffering rather than the loss of thy love and confidence, my Ralph," she answered tenderly. "To the young, it is easy to look back, for they have only just left the flowery garden. To the old, it may be so, when there is only a little way to go, and they will then be gathered to their fathers. But half-way through the long journey--with all the graves behind, and the dreary stretch of trackless heath before--Speak thy will, Ralph." "Forgive me if I pain you, Mother. I feel as if I must speak, and something has happened to-day which bids me do it now." It was evident that these words startled and discomposed the mother. She had been leaning back rather wearily in the corner of the bench, as one resting from bodily strain. Now she sat up, the rich crimson mantling her dark cheek. "What! Hast thou seen--hast thou heard something?" "I have seen," answered Ralph slowly, as if almost unwilling to say it, "a face from the long ago. At any rate, a face which carried my memory thither." "Whose?" she said, almost in tones of alarm. "I cannot tell you. Let me make it as plain as I can. You may be able to piece the disjointed strands together, when I cannot."