“Well, not altogether, sir. She had a taking way when she wasn’t in her tantrums, and she was very good to the poor people about Cheriton. _They_ doated upon her. She never quarrelled with them. It was with her father she got on worst. Those two never could hit it off. They were too much alike. And at last, when she was close upon seventeen, and a regular clipper, things got so bad that the Squire packed off the governess at an hour’s warning. She was too young and silly to manage such a pupil as Miss Strangway, and it’s my belief she sided with her in all her mischief, and made things worse. He turned her out of doors neck and crop, and a week afterwards he took his daughter up to London and handed her over to an English lady, who kept a finishing school somewhere abroad, at a place called Losun.” “At Lausanne, I think.” “Yes, that was the name. She was to stay there for a year, and then she was to have another year’s schooling in Paris to finish her; but she never got to Paris, didn’t Miss Eva. She ran off from Lausanne with a lieutenant in a marching regiment, and her father never saw her face again. He had no money to give her if she had married ever so well, but he took a pride in striking her name out of his will all the same.” “What was her husband’s name?” “Darcy—Tom Darcy. He was an Irishman, and I’ve heard he treated her very badly.” “Do you know how long it was after her marriage that she left him?” “I only know when I heard they were parted, and that was six or seven years after she ran away from Lausanne.” “How long was that before the Squire’s death and the sale of the estate?” “Nearly ten years, I should say.” “That makes it about thirty-four years ago?” “Yes, that’s about it.” Theodore noted down the date in his book. He had heard all these things before now—loosely, and in a disjointed fashion—never having been keenly interested in the vicissitudes of the Strangways. “Who was the man who took her away from her husband?” “God knows,” said Jasper. “None of us at Cheriton ever heard. We fancied he must have been a Frenchman, for she was heard of afterwards—a good many years afterwards—at Boulogne. Our old Vicar saw her there the year before he died—it must have been as late as sixty-four or sixty-five, I fancy,—a wreck, he said. He wouldn’t have recognized her if she hadn’t spoken to him, and she had to tell him who she was. I heard him tell my old master all about it, one summer afternoon at the Vicarage gate, when Sir Godfrey had driven over to see him. Yes, it must have been as late as sixty-five, I believe.” “Five years after Lord Cheriton bought the estate?” “About that.” “Do you remember the name of Miss Strangway’s governess? Of course, you do, though.” The bailiff rubbed his iron-grey whisker with a puzzled air.