The Captain was biting his nails and regarding him furtively. “How will he take it?” he asked himself. “I have a presentiment that my little scheme will result in a brilliant success. For all Sir Gilbert looks as strong as some gnarled old monarch of the woods, who can say whether he’s sound at the core? Looks are deceptive things, and at his age he might go off at a day’s notice—nay, without any notice at all. It was nothing less than a stroke of genius to represent Vanna’s father as belonging to the old Italian nobility. It touched him in a weak spot. Vanna must on no account forget that she is no longer an innkeeper’s daughter, but a person of much greater consequence. Well, I will give her credit for one thing; as far as looks and bearing go, she might be a princess born, or the daughter of a duke. Ah! who comes now?” The question was elicited by a discreet tap at the door, which was followed, an instant later, by the entrance of a servant. “If you please, Sir Gilbert,” said the man, “Lady Nelthorpe has called and would like to see you. Her ladyship wished me to say that she won’t detain you more than five minutes.” The sound of the man’s voice served to break Sir Gilbert’s waking trance. He opened his eyes, gave a little start, and grasping an arm of his chair with either hand, he drew himself into an upright position. Next moment he was himself again. “Repeat your message,” he said to the man in his usual curt, imperious tones; and when that had been done, he said: “Tell her ladyship that I will be with her in three minutes,” adding, _sotto voce_, “Plague take the woman! she never calls on me except when she wants to cozen me out of a cheque for one or other of her preposterous projects.” Then his eyes turned to Verinder, who had drawn his chair somewhat aside on the entrance of the servant, and as he did so, the expression of his face changed. “Pardon me,” he said, “if for the moment I had forgotten your presence. I am getting into years,” he added with a faint sigh, “and at times—only at times, mind you—my memory fails me somewhat. The news you have brought me, Captain—er—er—Dear me, how annoying!” “Verinder,” suggested the other. “To be sure, to be sure. The news you have brought me, Captain Verinder, is of such a surprising kind that I may be pardoned if I find myself unable all at once to realise it as something within the bounds of possibility. It—it seems like an incident culled from some romance.” Here he rose to his feet. There was a strange yearning look in his eyes as he turned and faced the Captain. “Do you mean to assure me, sir, on your word as a man of honour,” he said in a voice the deep impressiveness of which was not without a touch of pathos, “that you are prepared to produce before me a young man whom you will vouch for as being the offspring of my son John Alexander Clare.”