Inclosed with her letter was a brief, kind note from Miss Rawson, saying that they were much interested in Rona, and could see that the two young people were guarding some kind of a secret. They were ready to befriend the girl in a substantial way, but this must be upon condition of perfect frankness on his part. They hoped that he would come, on his return from Basingstoke, and explain to them in confidence how he and his sister came to be in such a plight, as they saw quite well that Rona was a well-brought-up girl, carefully educated, and they realized that some strong reason for her unaccountable destitution must exist. Here was a dilemma for poor Felix. Rona urged him to allow her to make a clean breast of things. He knew that she could not tell her story without Denzil's becoming aware of his identity, since he must have received the letter he had left for him upon the table of his room at Hawkins Row. He sat plunged in disquieting thought. Vronsky was out, at the post-office, and Felix was alone in the parlor, among the shrouded and bulky packages of model machinery. With a new clear-sightedness, born of harsh experience, the young man faced the thought of taking the girl away with him, out of England. Every pulse in his newly-stirred manhood was urging him to this course. Till Rona fell into his arms he had had no object in life. Now she was his object in life. A new kind of excitement, white and blazing, flamed up in him. Let them be once married, no police, no interfering uncles could part them. She was young, but not too young for love. He could cherish her.... On a pound a week? For a moment he saw the other side of the medal--saw the slender figure bowed with household toil, the hands--which to him had seemed like a child's hands--roughened with hard work. Could he propose such a course? Would she agree? Suppose she refused to marry him, what could be done in that case? Feeling as he did, could he act the big-brotherly rôle? He told himself that he could. He could do anything for her that she demanded of him. ... And she was there, at Normansgrave, under the roof which had sheltered his infancy and boyhood! Why, she might even be sleeping in his old room, for aught he knew to the contrary! He could picture her, moving through the rooms, sitting in the hall, crossing the trim lawns. It was the right home for her. And it appeared that it was actually offered to her! Denzil and Miss Rawson were willing, he gathered, to keep her there. If, as seemed fairly certain, the detective Burnett did not know where she was, were not their hands far more competent than his to guard her from evil? With such thoughts he was struggling when Vronsky came in. He unreservedly told him all, and translated Miss Rawson's letter to him. The Russian listened gravely, and was silent for a while. Then he said, "But this seems the solution of the problem, does it not?"