"Of course you are, chick. Only you never told me about him; now, did you?" "Because I was so honourable. It was a secret. Very well, good-night, then.... Oh, you poor mother! how cold you are, and I've been keeping you up! Good-night!" And off went Sally, leaving her mother to reason with herself about her own unreasonableness. After all, what was there in the fact that the little chap she remembered, seven years old, at the Residency at Khopal twenty odd years ago had grown up and inherited his father's baronetcy? What was there in this to discompose and upset her, to make her breath catch and her nerves thrill? A longing came on her that Gerry should not look in to say good-night till she was in a position to refuse interviewing on the score of impending sleep. She made a dash for bed, and got the light out, out-generalling him by perhaps a minute. What could she expect? Not that little Tamerlane, as his father called him, should die just to be out of her path. It was no fault of his that he was his father's son, with--how could she doubt after what Sally had just said?--the curse of his father's form of manhood or beasthood upon him. And yet, might it not have been better that he should have died, the innocent child she knew him, than live to follow his father's footsteps? Better, best of all that the whole evil brood should perish and be forgotten.... Stop! For the thought she had framed caught her breath and held it, caught her by the heart and checked its beating, caught her by the brain and stopped its thinking; and she was glad when her husband's voice found her, dumb and stunned in the silence, and brought a respite to the unanswerable enigma she was face to face with. "Hullo! light out already? Beg your pardon, darling. Good-night!" "I wasn't asleep." So he came in and said good-night officially and departed. His voice and his presence had staved off a nightmare idea that was on the watch to seize on her--how if chance had brought Sally across this unsuspected relation of hers, and events had forced a full declaration of their kinship? Somnus jumped at the chance given by its frustration; the sea air asserted itself, and went into partnership with him, and Rosalind's mind was carried captive into dreamland. But not before she had heard her husband stop singing to himself a German student's song as he closed his door on himself for the night. "War ich zum grossen Herrn geboren, wie Kaiser Maximilian...." There could be no further unwelcome memories there, thank Heaven! No mind oppressed by them could possibly sing "Kram-bam-bambuli, krambam-bu-li!" CHAPTER XL BATHING WEATHER AGAIN, AND A LETTER FROM TISHY BRADSHAW. THE TRIUMPH OF ORPHEUS. BUT WAS IT EURYDICE OR THE LITTLE BATTERY? THE REV. MR. HERRICK. OF A REVERIE UNDER A BATHING-MACHINE, AND OF GWENDOLEN'S MAMMA'S CONNECTING-LINK. OF DR. CONRAD'S MAMMA'S DONKEY-CHAIR, AND HIS GREAT-AUNT ELIZA. HOW SALLY AND HE STARTED FOR THEIR LAST WALK AT ST. SENNANS