"It would certainly give the interview its proper character," she allowed, "that of a purely business one. But in taking all this upon you, my dear child," and I was glad to hear her more natural tone again, "are you quite sure that you know what you are about?" "Yes," I replied, decidedly, and I meant it. "Sooner or later," I said to myself, "Mr Payne must be told everything. And if father's letter is what I am sure it must be, `sooner' will be pretty surely better than `later.'" My dreams, I well remember, were not of a very tranquil nature that night. I felt distressed at having managed for the first time, during my stay with her, to annoy my kind godmother, and I felt miserable and mortified at the bare shadow of a suggestion that my writing to Clarence Payne, asking him to call, as I had done, was, to say the least, unconventional, if not unladylike. For remember, I am writing of fully thirty or forty years ago, when the position of young girls of our class was very different from what it now is--though I cannot quite allow that in every way the alteration seems to me for the better. My correspondent had not, it is true, in the faintest degree appeared to think I had done anything unusual, but then I felt that he was a man of peculiarly chivalrous temperament. _Had_ he thought so he would have done his best to prevent my finding it out. "Perhaps," I said to myself, "he looks upon me as very childish and inexperienced, and makes allowance on this account." This idea was not a pleasant one either, but my common-sense dismissed it. "No," I thought, "he does not think me silly, or he would not have talked to me about all this as he has done." But I felt very glad that I had written to ask the elder Mr Payne to come too, though my latest waking reflection was a hearty longing that I had never mixed myself up for good or bad in the Millflowers mystery. And a strange thing happened, as if to reprove me for the mingling of selfishness in this wish. I dreamt that as I was sitting alone in my godmother's drawing-room waiting for my expected visitors, the door opened silently, and in came--walking slowly and with evident effort--Caryll Grey, or--a shiver went through me even in my sleep--his ghost. I saw him distinctly--more distinctly than I had ever done in my waking hours. His poor face looked very drawn and white, the gentle eyes unnaturally large and wistful. "Miss Fitzmaurice," I thought he said, "regret nothing. Go through with it, I beseech you, and oh! for Heaven's sake, make him tell." Then the vision disappeared, and I seemed to be again alone in the room--waiting. Whom did he mean by "him"? His brother, or the already praying-to-confess traitor? I could not say, but it did not matter. I threw my misgivings and regrets aside, resolved to do my best. And when I awoke in the morning, the impression of my dream had in no way grown fainter. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. "NOT JOCELYN."