She did not reply, but he knew that, thus far, he was right. His mind ran quickly back over the months that had passed since he came to Annapolis: he had cheated but rarely at cards--and not at all at the house-parties--he had led a thoroughly respectable life, trifled with no woman, victimized no man. There was only one thing that met him, insistently and always: the theft of the gold at Hedgely Hall; and it, he had returned.--Unless--unless, by some queer misadventure, she had received a letter from home, which aroused her suspicion of his identity. And there _had_ come letters to her, before supper--the pinnace brought them down.--It was not Marbury's gold, Marbury was not at Whitehall denouncing him. No, it _must_ be a letter! "I had a letter from home, to-day," he said. She started; and he knew he had guessed it. "From home--did it contain much gossip?" she asked. "Enough to hurry me back--I shall return with Sir Charles Brandon." "Bad news?" she inquired. He smiled. "That depends on the way one looks at it." He drew a little closer. It were best to lose no time, now; if his imposture had been detected, the best way to meet it, was by confession, before the Governor could act. It would go far to sustain his story, if he should tell it, voluntarily, before he knew (apparently) that any one suspected him. "Miss Stirling," he said, looking off into the distance, "we do queer things in this world, and we travel queer paths, sometimes--but we usually, once in our lives, at least, come back to the simple truth and the plain path. I have come to them, now." He fell to drawing diagrams in the grass with his walking-stick, tracing them over and over, while he let her wonder what was in his mind. Presently he spoke again, seemingly with much feeling, his eyes now hard upon her face. "I am going to make a confession," he said--"whether it is a good one or a bad must rest with you; but for _you_ it would not be made.--I am _not_ Sir Edward Parkington." "So I am aware," she answered. "What! you knew?" he cried, with well feigned amazement. "Since this evening." "But how?" he protested. "How did you know?" "I had a letter from Lady Catherwood, in London. She mentioned Sir Edward Parkington's coming to Annapolis--and described him. The description does not tally, in the least, with you." ("It is this letter which she has given to the Governor," he thought. "Why, the devil! did I forget the rendezvous?") He laughed. "As far apart as the poles." Then he sobered. "My rightful name, Miss Stirling, is Roger de Lysle. I am the second son of the ninth Earl of Doncaster." "Is this identity any more stable than the other?" she asked, after a pause. "It is--though I cannot blame you for doubting." "How did you come by the letters of introduction?" "Parkington's dead body was cast up on the sands beside me. I took his letters, and, in a fit of foolishness, presented them to Governor Sharpe--my own having been lost in the sea."