"Hubert Farquhar Rawson-Clew," he said solemnly. "Now--" But whatever was to have followed was prevented, for at that moment she looked up, and for some reason, suddenly decided things had gone far enough, and so freed herself. "I don't think it matters much what I should have done," she said, "or why, either. Father is not dead; you ought to know better than to talk about such a thing; it is bad taste." "Does that matter in the simple life? I thought when you retired you were going to dispense with falsity and pretences, and say and do honestly what you honestly thought, when it did not hurt other people's feelings." "So I do," she answered; "that is why, when I thought I was alone just now, I asked out loud how it was that father was still alive. Since then I have seen." "What have you seen?" "That it is to prevent me from making a great muddle of things. If he had been dead I dare say I should have married you--I may as well confess it since you know--and we both should have repented it ever afterwards. As it is, if I were free to-morrow, I would know better than to do it." He did not seem much troubled by the last statement. "We should have had to talk things over," he said. "No, talking wouldn't have been any good," she answered; "there is a great distance between us." He looked down at the space of red tiles that separated them. "That is rather remediable," he observed. "Do you think I am not in earnest?" she said. "I am. There is a real barrier; besides all these things I have mentioned there is something else that cuts me off. I have a debt to pay you and until it is paid, if I were your own cousin, I could not stand on the same platform." "A debt?" he repeated the word in surprise. His young cousin's loan to Captain Polkington had slipped his memory, and even if it had not, its connection with the present would not have occurred to him. Julia had been there, it is true, when the affair was talked of eighteen months ago, and he himself had unofficially paid the money to end the matter, but he never dreamed of connecting either her or himself with it now. Still less would he have dreamed that she considered herself bound to pay him what her father had borrowed from another. "What debt?" he asked, thinking the word must be hyperbolical, and meant to stand for something quite different, though he could not imagine what. "You have forgotten?" she said. "I thought you had; that only shows the distance more plainly; you have one standard for yourself and another for me." "Tell me what it is and let us see if we cannot compound it." But she shook her head. "It can't be compounded," she said; "you will know when I pay it." "And when will that be?"