Before she could say another word he was out of the house. In five minutes the family doctor had arrived, and in ten minutes Mrs. Kemp, the admiral’s widow, was standing by the bed to which her old friend had been carried. It was a stroke of paralysis, the first, and not a very severe one. Within an hour Mrs. Pennant had recovered sufficiently to remember what she had heard, and to insist on her adopted daughter’s going up to town. By the next train, therefore, Lord St. Austell and Deborah Audaer were on their way to London. CHAPTER XX. In the midst of his anxiety on his brother’s account Lord St. Austell was filled with admiration, but rather puzzled, by the entire change in Deborah’s manner towards him. Being on old man of the world he was able, as soon as he had done for the time all there was to be done, to ease his mind sufficiently of its burden to enjoy the idea of a long tête-à-tête with the beautiful girl. When he asked her if he should have the compartment reserved, she made no objection. When he loaded her with little attentions, and began to assume his most fascinating manner, she thanked him smilingly, but still showed none of the rather distant timidity with which she had formerly treated his advances. He grew more and more anxious to know the reason of this change. “I did not think, Miss Audaer, at this time yesterday that I should ever have the pleasure of a journey in your society.” “No indeed, nor did I,” said Deborah simply. “In fact, at one time I was afraid that I had had the misfortune to come under the ban of your displeasure.” “Oh no, how could you, when you were so kind to Rees?” “Yet even your fondness for Rees would never before induce you to come up to London with me to find out how he was getting on.” Deborah said nothing to this. After a short pause Lord St. Austell went on: “So that, while I am delighted to find that the--shall we call it--prejudice under which I labored in your eyes has broken down, I am at the same time at a loss to account for the change which has made me so happy.” “Are you really?” asked Deborah with surprise, turning towards him eyes full of intelligence and sincerity. “I should have thought a man of your experience would have understood it so easily.” There was no quality of his to which the earl would not rather have heard her allude than to his experience, suggesting, as it did, the years which had brought it. However, he had a great deal too much tact and shrewdness to betray his feeling on the subject. “I confess,” he said, “that long and varied as my experience has been, your charming sex still has surprises for me. Will you explain the reason of the altered light in which you regard me?”