She was seated on a big settee, near the fire, pretending to read a newspaper, but her fingers twitched nervously, and presently I saw one hand squeeze the paper convulsively. I tossed away my cigarette, and crossed over to her. "Vera," I said in a low tone, "tell me what is amiss. What has happened? why do you look so worried?" We were alone, and the door was closed. She looked up, and her eyes met mine. Her lips parted as if she were about to speak, then they shut tightly. Suddenly she bit her lip, and her big, expressive eyes filled with tears. "Vera," I said very gently, sinking down beside her, for I felt a strange affinity between us--an affinity of soul, "What is it? What's the matter? Tell me, dear. I won't tell a soul." I couldn't help it. My arm stole round her waist and my lips touched her cold forehead. Had she sprung away from me, turned upon me with flaming eyes and boxed my ears even, I should have been less surprised than at what happened, for never before had I taken such a liberty. Instead, she turned her pretty head, sank with a sigh upon my shoulder, and an instant later her arms encircled my neck. She was sobbing bitterly, so terribly that I feared she was about to become hysterical. "Oh, Mr. Ashton!" she burst out, "oh, if you only knew!" "Knew what?" I whispered. "Tell me. I won't breathe it to a single living person." "But that's it," she exclaimed as she still wept bitterly. "I don't know--but I suspect--I fear something so terribly, and yet I don't know what it is!" This was an enigma I had not looked for. "What is going to happen?" I asked, more to say something, anything, than to sit there speechless and supine. "If only I knew I would tell you," she answered between her sobs, "I would tell you sooner than anybody because--oh, I love you so, I love you so!" I shall never forget how my heart seemed to spring within me at those blessed words. "Vera! My darling!" She was in my arms. I was kissing her passionately. Now I knew what I had not before realised--I was desperately in love with Vera Thorold, this beautiful girl with the wonderful, deep eyes and the glorious hair, who when I had last seen her, had been still a child in short frocks, though lovely then. Footsteps were approaching. Quickly we sprang apart as the door opened. "Her ladyship wishes you to come at once, mademoiselle," said a voice in the shadow in what struck me as being rather a disagreeable tone, with a slightly foreign accent. It was Judith, Lady Thorold's French maid. Vera rose at once. For a brief instant her eyes met mine. Then she was gone. I sat there in the big book-lined room quite alone, smoking cigarette after cigarette, wondering and wondering. Who was "Smithson?" What was this strange, unexpected mystery? Above all, what was this trouble that Vera dreaded so, or was it merely some whim of her imagination? I knew her to be of a highly-strung, super-sensitive nature.