He smiled and, stooping, kissed the warm, pallid face. "I would do a great deal to make you happy, mother; but I would _not_ ask a woman I did not love to be my wife. Be at rest; all is well with me. And now I must leave you, if you will not go down to luncheon." "I think not; I am not strong to-day. Is May waiting?" "More than May. A friend of mine has arrived, and will stay with us for a few weeks." Lady Thetford's face had been flushed and eager, but at the last words it suddenly blanched. "A friend, Rupert! Who?" "You have heard me speak of him before," he said carelessly; "his name is Guy Legard." CHAPTER XI. ON THE WEDDING EVE. The family at Thetford Towers were a good deal surprised, a few hours later that day, by the unexpected appearance of Lady Thetford at dinner. Wan as some spirit of the moonlight, she came softly in, just as they entered the dining-room, and her son presented his friend, Mr. Legard, at once. "His resemblance to the family will be the surest passport to your favor, mother mine," Sir Rupert said, gayly. "Mrs. Weymore met him just now, and recoiled with a shriek, as though she had seen a ghost. Extraordinary, isn't it--this chance resemblance?" "Extraordinary," Lady Thetford said, "but not at all unusual. Of course, Mr. Legard is not even remotely connected with the Thetford family?" She asked the question without looking at him. She kept her eyes fixed on her plate, for that frank, fair face before her was terrible to her, almost as a ghost. It was the days of her youth over again, and Sir Noel, her husband, once more by her side. "Not that I am aware of," Mr. Legard said, running his fingers through his abundant brown hair. "But I may be for all that. I am like the hero of a novel--a mysterious orphan--only, unfortunately, with no identifying strawberry mark on my arm. Who my parents were, or what my real name is, I know no more than I do of the biography of the man in the moon." There was a murmur of astonishment--May and Rupert vividly interested, Lady Thetford white as a dead woman her eyes averted, her hand trembling as if palsied. "No," said Mr. Legard, gravely, and a little sadly, "I stand as totally alone in this world as a human being can stand--father, mother, brother, sister, I never have known; a nameless, penniless waif, I was cast upon the world four-and-twenty years ago. Until the age of twelve I was called Guy Vyking; then the friends with whom I had lived left England for America, and a man--a painter, named Legard--took me and gave me his name. And there the romance comes in: a lady, a tall, elegant lady, too closely veiled for us to see her face, came to the poor home that was mine, paid those who had kept me from my infancy, and paid Legard for his future care of me. I have never seen her since; and I sometimes think," his voice failing, "that she may have been my mother."