Still, even when the young man was conscious, Dr. Rivers enjoined absolute quiet. We were not to trouble yet about people who might be sorrowing for his absence. As he got better he would remember of himself, and let us know. Aline was now the only visitor to the sick-room. The sick man seemed to have got as used to her face and Oona's as if he had always known them. Aline told us that he showed pleasure in her visits, and I think that, half unknown to herself, in those days she began to lay the foundation of a warm affection for the boy, in whose case Pierce might have been. At last he was well enough to ask her to write a letter for him. It was to his grandfather, an English clergyman, and told him in the briefest possible way, for he was not equal to much thought, about his fall, and that he was steadily recovering, so that there was no cause for anxiety. Aline came downstairs with the letter in her hand, and when I came in from the stables, where I had been giving the bay an apple, I found her standing by the hall-table, gazing at the envelope with a puzzled line between her eyes. "Come here, Hilda," she said, "and tell me if you have any associations with this name." I took the letter from her hand. It was addressed to the Rev. Henry Vane, Wrixmundham Rectory, Warwickshire. "No; I'm sure I haven't," I replied. "Never heard of a Vane before in my life, except Cromwell's Sir Harry. Perhaps you are thinking of him." "No; I don't think so," said Aline, putting the letter into the tattered basket which served us for post-bag. "I suppose I must have only fancied it, but I certainly did seem to have heard the name before." I often looked towards Angry in those days, and thought how hard-hearted Sir Rupert must be never to have concerned himself about his grandson's fate. It was probably true that, as people said, he hated the boy, as he had hated his mother and his father, though the latter was his own flesh and blood. Well, I was glad that in his weakness and need the poor boy was in Oona's motherly hands, rather than at the mercy of that pair of old wretches over yonder. I had him on my conscience somehow since I had made that foolish speech, which had hardly left my mouth before the accident occurred. The rest of the household seemed to think that the mystery was solved. Our visitor was an Englishman, come over for the hunting probably, as many did every year, and whose headquarters were at some inn or other, and that was all.