"Well, your ladyship, it was an accident, seeing as how the carriage broke down with Mr. Vyking and the lady, a-driving furious to catch the last London train. The lady was so hurted that she had to be carried to the inn, and went quite out of her head, raving and dangerous like. Mr. Vyking had the landlady to wait upon her until he could telegraph to London for a nurse, which one came down next day and took charge of her. The baby wasn't two days old when he brought it to me, and the poor young mother was dreadful low and out of her head all the time. Mr. Vyking and the nurse were all that saw her, and the doctor, of course; but she didn't die, as the doctor thought she would, but got well, and before she came right to her senses Mr. Vyking paid the doctor and told him he needn't come back. And then, a little more than a fortnight after, they took her away, all sly and secret-like, and what they told her about her poor baby I don't know. I always thought there was something dreadful wrong about the whole thing." "And this Mr. Vyking--was he the child's father--the woman's husband?" Martha Brand looked sharply at the speaker, as if she suspected _she_ could answer that question best herself. "Nobody knew, but everybody thought who. I've always been of opinion myself that Guy's father and mother were gentlefolks, and I always shall be." "Does the boy know his own story?" "Yes, your ladyship--all I've told you." "Where is he? I should like to see him." Mrs. Brand's daughter, all this time hushing her baby, started up. "I'll fetch him. He's up-stairs in Legard's, I know." She left the room and ran up-stairs. The painter, Legard, still was touching up Miss Jenkins, and the bright-haired boy stood watching the progress of that work of art. "Guy! Guy!" she cried breathlessly, "come down-stairs at once. You're wanted." "Who wants me, Ellen?" "A lady, dressed in the most elegant and expensive mourning--a real lady, Guy; and she has come about that advertisement, and she wants to see you." "What is she like, Mrs. Darking?" inquired the painter--"young or old?" "Young, I should think; but she hides her face behind a thick veil, as if she didn't want to be known. Come, Guy." She hurried the lad down-stairs and into their little room. The veiled lady still sat talking to the old woman, her back to the dim daylight, and that disguising veil still down. She turned slightly at their entrance, and looked at the boy through it. Guy stood in the middle of the floor, his fearless blue eyes fixed on the hidden face. Could he have seen it he might have started at the grayish pallor which overspread it at sight of him. "So like! So like!" the lady was murmuring between her set teeth. "It is terrible--it is marvelous!" "This is Guy, your ladyship," said Martha Brand. "I've done what I could for him for the last ten years, and I'm almost as sorry to part with him as if he were my own. Is your ladyship going to take him away with you now?"