At length she spoke again--'twas almost in a whisper. "I have told you more about myself than I have told to any one since I came to England. It is your turn now. Tell me where lies your home!" "In the north. In Cumberland." "In--in Cumberland," she repeated, with a little catch of her breath. "You have lived there long?" "'Twas the home of my fathers, and I spent my boyhood there. But between that time and this year's spring I have been a stranger to the countryside. For I was first for some years at Oxford, and thence I went to Leyden." She rose abruptly from the couch, drawing her train clear of me with her hand, and leaned over the balcony, resting her elbow on its baluster, and propping her chin upon the palm of her hand. "Leyden!" she said carelessly. "'Tis a town of great beauty, they tell me, and much visited by English students." "There were but few English students there during the months of my residence," said I. "I could have wished there had been more." A second period of silence interrupted our talk, and I sat wondering over that catch in her breath and the tremor of her voice when she repeated "Cumberland." Was it possible, I asked myself, that she could have learnt of Sir Julian Harnwood and of his quarrel with her husband? If she did know, and if she attributed the duel in which her husband fell to a result of it, why, then--Cumberland was Julian's county, and the name might well strike with some pain upon her hearing. But who could have informed her? Not the Count, surely; 'twas hardly a matter of which a man could boast to his wife. I remembered, besides, that he had asked me to speak English, and to speak it low. There could have been but one motive for the request--a desire to keep the subject of our conversation a secret from the Countess. I glanced towards her. Without changing her attitude she had turned her head sideways upon her palm, and was quietly looking me over from head to foot. Then she rose erect, and with a frank and winning smile, she said, as if in explanation: "I was seeking to discover, Mr. Buckler, what it was in you that had beguiled me to forget the rest of my guests. However, if I have shown them but scant courtesy, I shall bid them reproach you, not me." "Prithee, madame, no! Have some pity on me! The statement would get me a thousand deadly enemies." "Hush!" said she, with a playful menace. "You go perilous near to a compliment;" and we went back into the glare and noise of the drawing-room. "Ah, Ilga! I have missed you this half-hour." 'Twas a little woman of, I should say, forty years who bustled up to us on our entrance. "You see?" said the Countess, turning to me with a whimsical reproach. "You must blame Mr. Buckler, Clemence, and I will make you acquainted that you may have the occasion."