"You were very sympathetic, very quick to read my thoughts. I own that I admired her immensely even at that early stage of our acquaintance." "And admiration soon grew into love. It has been such happiness for me to watch the growth of that love--to see you two young creatures so trustful and so happy together, walking about that old garden yonder, which has seen so little of youth or of happiness. I felt almost as a mother might have felt watching the happiness of her son. Indeed, Allan, you have become to me almost as a second son." "And you are becoming to me almost as a second mother," he said, bending down to kiss the slim white hand which lay languidly upon her open book. Never till to-day had she called him Allan, never before had she spoken to him so freely of her regard for him. "Allan," she repeated softly. "You don't mind my calling you by your Christian name?" "Mind! I am flattered that you should so honour me." "Allan," she repeated again, musingly, "why were you not called George, after your father?" "Because Allan is an old family name on my mother's side of the house. Her father and grandfather and elder brother were Allans." He left her almost immediately, taking leave of her briefly, with a sudden revulsion of feeling. That question of hers, and the mention of his father's name, chilled and angered him, in the very moment when his heart had been moved by her sympathy and affection. There was something in the familiar mention of his father's name that re-awakened those suspicions which he had never altogether banished from his mind. It was perhaps on this account that he had spoken slightingly of Mrs. Wornock when Lady Emily suggested that he should make her known to his father. That question about the name had seemed to him a fresh link in the chain of circumstantial evidence. Suzette and her father were the first arrivals at Allan's luncheon-party. The General was a martinet in the matter of punctuality; and having taken what he called his _chota haz'ri_ at half-past six that morning, was by no means inclined to feel indulgently disposed towards dilatory arrivals, who should keep him waiting for his tiffin; nor could he be made to understand that a quarter to two always meant two o'clock. The Morningtons appeared at five minutes before two, the Vicar and his daughter as the clock struck the hour; and then there followed a quarter of an hour of obvious waiting, during which Allan showed Suzette the Chinese enamels and ivories, and the arsenal of deadly swords and daggers displayed against the wall of the Mandarin-room, while the Morningtons were discussing with Lady Emily and her husband the merits of Wiltshire as compared with Suffolk.