Norma looked at him steadily. "Did you know my father and mother?" she demanded, presently, in an odd, tense voice. There was another pause before Chris said, slowly: "I have met your father. But I knew--I know--your mother." "You _know_ her?" The world was whirling about Norma. "Is Aunt Kate my mother?" she asked, breathing hard. "No. I don't know why you should not know. You call her Aunt Annie," Chris said. Norma's hands dropped to her sides. She breathed as if she were suffocating. "_Aunt Annie!_" she whispered, in stupefaction. And she turned and walked a few steps blindly, her eyes wide and vacant, and one hand pressed to her cheek. "My God!--my God!" he heard her say. "Annie eloped when she was a girl," Chris began presently, when she was dazedly walking on again. "She was married, and the man deserted her. She was ill, in Germany----But shall I talk now? Would you rather not?" "Oh, no--no! Go on," Norma said, briefly. "Alice was the first to guess it," Christopher pursued. "Her sister doesn't know it, or dream it!" "Aunt Annie doesn't! She does not know that I'm her own daughter!... But what _does_ she think?" "She supposes that her baby died, dear. I'm sorry to tell you, Norma, but I couldn't lie to you! You'll understand everything, now--why your grandmother wants to make it all up to you----" "Does Leslie know?" Norma demanded, suddenly, from a dark moment of brooding. "Nobody knows! Your Aunt Kate, your grandmother, Alice, and I, are absolutely the only people in the world! And Norma, _nobody else must know_. For the sake of the family, for everyone's sake----" "Oh, I see that!" she answered, quickly and impatiently. And for awhile she walked on in silence, and apparently did not hear his one or two efforts to recommence the conversation. "Aunt Annie!" she said once, half aloud. And later she added, absently: "Yes, I should know!" They had walked well up into the Park, now they turned back; the sun was getting hot, first perambulators were making their appearance, and Norma loosened her light furs. "So I am a Melrose!" she mused. And then, abruptly: "Chris, what _is_ my name?" "Melrose," he answered, flushing. Her eyes asked a sudden, horrified question, and she took the answer from his look without a word. He saw the colour ebb from her face, leaving it very white. "You said--they--my parents--were married, Chris?" she asked, painfully. "Annie supposed they were. But he was not free!" Norma did not speak again. In silence they crossed the Avenue, and went on down the shady side street. Chris, with chosen words and quietly, told her the story of Annie's girlhood, who and what her father had been, the bitter grief of her grandmother, the general hushing up of the whole affair. He watched her anxiously as he talked, for there was a drawn, set look to her face that he did not like. "Why did Aunt Kate ever decide to bring me to my--my grandmother, after so many years?" she asked.