"Which has, I fear, given your mother a great deal of annoyance. I am, unfortunately, too weak at present to call upon her, or to explain to her. Therefore I have ventured to ask you to be so very kind as to come here, so that I may send a message to Lady Woodroffe." "I am here," said Sir Humphrey, ungraciously. "I will not take up much of your time. I had an illness in America which touched my brain, I believe. I imagined that a child which I lost twenty-four years ago was still living. He was the son of my first husband, whose name was Woodroffe. He was also the father of Richard Woodroffe here. More than that, I fancied that one person was that child. That person was yourself. I fancied that you were the child. I had not lost it by death. I surrendered it to a lady by adoption." Humphrey started. He changed colour. He sat up in his chair. He listened eagerly. His lip trembled. "He understands," Molly whispered. "No; he begins to understand what was meant," Dick returned. "He cannot guess the whole." Yes; he understood now that he was face to face with a great danger. Many things became plain to him--Molly's words, John Haveril's words, Sir Robert's words. He understood the nature of the danger. He listened, while a horrible terror seized him at the mere prospect of that danger. He heard the rest with a sense of relief, equalled only by his sense of the danger. Alice went on. "I first saw you at the theatre one night. You were so much like my husband that I concluded that you must be my son. I met you at Sir Robert's. I became certain that you were my son. We made inquiries. Please tell him, Sir Robert." "These inquiries," said the doctor, "proved certain things which were curious and interesting. I may confess that they seemed to point in your direction. This lady became too hastily convinced that they did so. She is now as firmly convinced that they did not." Humphrey sighed deeply. "It was an awkward case," Sir Robert went on--"one that required tact." "I gave a great deal of trouble"--Alice took up the wondrous tale again. "But it is all over now," the doctor added. "Do not talk too much." "Yes, all over. My bodily frame is weak, but my mind is clear again. Now, Sir Humphrey, I wish you, if you will be so kind, to go to Lady Woodroffe, and tell her from me that the hallucination has passed away, and give her my regrets that I disturbed her. Sir Robert will perhaps go with you, to make the explanation clearer, because he knows all the details." "I will certainly call upon Lady Woodroffe this evening," said the doctor. "Indeed, Sir Humphrey is ignorant of certain facts connected with the case which will probably incline Lady Woodroffe to forgive and excuse the more readily." "Will you do this, Sir Humphrey?" asked Mrs. Haveril. "Yes, if that's all," he replied hoarsely. "Is that all? Was it, as you say, hallucination? Are you quite certain?"