But there was the significant fact that she seemed to be called by her mother's surname. It all contributed to the idea that Rona was nobody's child. And, deeply in love though Denzil was, he did not like the notion at all. Rankin Leigh, it appeared, was an elderly man, and he had owned to the Mother that he was not the child's own uncle, but her great-uncle--her mother had been his niece. He had pumped hard to find out whether anything was known of the child's father, but, of course, had ascertained nothing. Denzil asked if there was any reason to suppose that Rankin Leigh was the girl's legal guardian. Nothing was known on this head; but, as he was apparently the only living relative, and as there was no more money to support the child, they had felt bound to let her go. "I really did not know what to do with her," said the good woman. "I thought her much too handsome to be in business, and much too refined for service, and, of course, she was too young to teach." The Squire returned to Normansgrave with much food for thought. He had obtained from the Mother one thing which he thought of great importance, and that was the name and address of the firm of solicitors who had arranged for the child's reception at the Orphanage. To them he wrote, at the earliest possible moment. His letter came back to him through the dead-letter office, marked "Gone away." And no search of Postal Guides revealed any address for a firm of that name. He began to wonder whether the simple-seeming nun had played him false after all. Yet, what motive could she have had for doing so? The visit brought him home, restless and dissatisfied. He determined to say nothing to Rona of where he had been. On his way home in the train he had serious doubts as to whether he should not disentangle himself altogether from this intricate affair of his brother and the Girl from Nowhere. It was completely out of his line to be thus mixed up in questionable matters. But the moment he saw her again--the moment, when, standing on the terrace, he beheld her drifting across the lawns with an armful of flowers, walking without a hat, the boisterous wind ruffling her hair back from her flawless forehead--there awoke in him the long ignored natural desires. His heart beat, his eyes filled, his being grew big with the craving to take her, to make her his at any price he might afterwards be called upon to pay. Rona, when she saw him standing there, stopped short. She blushed as she met his gaze. She could not now encounter him without confusion. She felt certain that she did not love Felix. But she was anything but certain that she did love his brother.