"I think I know why you wanted to see through this house," she was saying. "I think you must have known it long ago when you were a boy. Perhaps you loved it too--and had to leave it." "I went to London when I was eighteen to make my fortune." "Oh," said Jean, and into that "Oh" she put all manner of things she could not say. She had been observing her visitor, and she was sure that this shabby little man (Peter Reid cared not at all for appearances and never bought a new suit of clothes unless compelled) had returned no Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. Probably he was one of the "faithful failures" of the world, one who had tried and missed, and had come back, old and tired and shabby, to see his boyhood's home. The tenderest corner of Jean's tender heart was given to shabby people, and she longed to try to comfort and console, but dared not in case of appearing impertinent. She reflected dismally that he had not even a wife to be nice to him, and he was far too old to have a mother. "Are you staying in Priorsford?" she asked gently. "I'm at the Temperance Hotel for a few days. I--the fact is, I haven't been well. I had to take a rest, so I came back here--after thirty years." "Have you really been away for thirty years? Great-aunt Alison came to The Rigs first about thirty years ago. Do you, by any chance, know our landlord in London? Mr. Peter Reid is his name." "I know him." "He's frightfully rich, they say. I don't suppose you know him well enough to ask him not to sell The Rigs? It can't make much difference to him, though it means so much to us. Is he old, our landlord?" "A man in his prime," said Peter Reid. "That's pretty old, isn't it?" said Jean--"about sixty, I think. Of course," hastily, "sixty isn't really old. When I'm sixty--if I'm spared--I expect I shall feel myself good for another twenty years." "I thought I was," said Peter Reid, "until I broke down." "Oh, but a rest at Priorsford will put you all right." Could he afford a holiday? she wondered. Even temperance hotels were rather expensive when you hadn't much money. Would it be very rash and impulsive to ask him to stay at The Rigs? "Are you comfortable at the Temperance?" she asked. "Because if you don't much care for hotels we would love to put you up here. Mhor is apt to be noisy, but I'm sure he would try to be quiet when he knew that you needed a rest." "My dear young lady," gasped Peter Reid. "I'm afraid you are rash. You know nothing of me. I might be an impostor, a burglar--" Jean threw back her head and laughed. "Do forgive me, but the thought of you with a jemmy and a dark lantern is so funny." "You don't even know my name." "I don't," said Jean, "but does that matter? You will tell it me when you want to." "My name is Reid, the same as your landlord." "Then," said Jean, "are you a relative of his?" "A connection." It was not what he meant to say, but he said it.