Instead of resenting this speech as I supposed, Miss Mortimer smiled to herself with a nod. She gave a glance out from her screen at the blank of cloudy sky and the falling rain. It seemed to soothe her somehow. She relapsed back again, and resumed her knitting, without looking at or speaking to me. Did it relieve her to be told that nobody was likely to come on such a day? Could she imagine a spring shower was motive enough to keep the avenging truth away? I cannot tell. Who could tell? I might be wronging her cruelly to think of any avenger on his way. But I left the room, leaving her there with the blank clouds and rain, with the solitary gleam of the decaying fire, in the heavy silence and broad light of the vast room. She was standing at bay, grim and desperate; but she could actually imagine that the fate which pursued her would be kept away by the April shower! I cannot express all the wonder, pity, and horror that come over my heart--such strange, strange, inconsequent blendings of the dreadful and the foolish were not in any philosophy of mine. CHAPTER VII. I found Aunt Milly in the library with some miniatures spread out before her. She wanted to show them to me. I can’t tell very well what had suggested this to her. She was kept indoors by the rain, and with this standing uneasiness in her mind, Aunt Milly naturally sought for some means of returning to a discussion of the subject that engaged all her thoughts. She made me sit down by her, and silently put one after another before me. I could see clearly enough what she meant. A certain family resemblance ran through them all, a resemblance which Aunt Milly herself had escaped, and of which I believe there was not a trace in my features. But one after another these portraits recalled to me the young Italian’s face. “I ought to tell you,” said Aunt Milly in a tremulous tone, “what has occurred to my own mind. I have thought of it for some time, but it’s so very unlikely that I never could allow myself to think it. I do believe he must be my father’s son. Yes, you may well be surprised. I can’t think anything else but that my father must have married and had a son, and Sarah somehow had bullied him into leaving the child behind, and we’ve been deceivers all this time, and the Park has never been ours.” “But, dear Aunt Milly,” cried I, “with all these terrible thoughts, why don’t you satisfy yourself. If you tell Miss Mortimer how much you have found out, she certainly cannot help clearing up the rest.” “Ah! but she _can_ help it--she is not carried away by her feelings; she knows better than to be surprised or anything like that. I have asked her and been none the better for it,” cried Aunt Milly, “and the young man will not tell me either. Milly, hush! there is certainly some one at the door.”