"You remember the evening at Hedgely Hall, when you told me that Sir Edward was not Sir Edward?" she asked. "Well, it happened he had been growing a little ardent about that time, and I thought I would try an experiment. (It was not, I reckon, an altogether nice thing to do--but I did it; and I am telling it only to you, Dick, remember!) I drew him on--rather, I let him draw himself on; he needed very little encouragement. And I did it, because, it seemed to me, when he proposed, he also would have to disclose his real name, and the reason for the masquerade. Nothing would kill a prospect of marriage so effectively as concealment." "That can be true only if he intended to remain in America," observed Maynadier. "And he had already sounded me, tentatively, on that very idea," she answered. "I thought it was all fol-de-rol, at first; but I concluded differently, when he deliberately referred to it several times, and insisted that he was considering it very seriously. At all events, we played the game. We made fair progress at Hedgely Hall----" "Yes, I rather think you did----" "Particularly, when I saw how rapidly you had progressed with Miss Stirling," she retorted.--"And we did better at Montpelier,"--she went on--"and still better at Sotterly. But he never quite reached the point--he came up almost to it, many times, then veered off, as gracefully as ship before the wind. I could see, or thought I could, what was in his mind. He was not quite sure, whether it was safe, yet, to doff his borrowed identity, either because he was not quite certain of himself, or because he was not quite sure of me. Such was the situation, when I left Sotterly, being called suddenly to Hedgely Hall. "I did not see him, again, until this evening--and, at once, when we started on our walk after supper, I noticed the change. He was going to declare himself; indeed, we had not got to the rose-walk, until he had suggested, in a laughing way, that we continue on to Annapolis and St. Anne's Rectory on Hanover Street.... When we came back, half an hour or so later, I had the story. He did not bind me to secrecy. He was the high-bred gentleman in that, as he always has been with me--he even told me I should tell you, if I cared to do so. He assumed that you were--the one, Dick. And this is his story:-- "He is the son of the Earl of Doncaster--a second son. He disgraced himself, somehow, and, to avoid prosecution, fled to this country. On the voyage, he became acquainted with Sir Edward Parkington--their ship went down, near St. Mary's, during a storm, and all the rest on board were lost. He and Parkington's dead body were cast up on the sands, together. He took Parkington's letters, presented them to Governor Sharpe as his own,--and that is all.--He is going back to England with his friend, Sir Charles Brandon."