‘Naturally,’ says Wyndham, in answer to that swift movement of the pretty hands, ‘you object to my interference. But I must ask your forbearance in a matter that’—with a steady look at her—‘does not concern me in the slightest degree. You must really forgive me if I seem impatient; but, as you are aware, I know nothing about you, and to look after you as the Professor asked me to do requires thought. I am in complete ignorance about you. I can see that you are educated, but beyond that I know nothing.’ ‘Ah! you know nothing indeed,’ says she quickly. ‘I am not educated. I know hardly anything. I am one of the most ignorant people alive.’ ‘And yet——’ ‘I have read anything I could find to read,’ interrupts she; ‘and at one time I went to a day-school, but that is all.’ ‘I see,’ says Wyndham. His tone is indifferent, but, inwardly, curiosity is stirring him. So little education, and yet so calm, so refined a manner! Who is this girl, with her well-bred air, but with, too, the little touches here and there that betray the fact of her having lived not only out of the fashionable world, but very far from even the outskirts of it? What whim of fate has given her that shapely head, those shell-like ears and pointed fingers, yet given her into the clutches of the middle classes? ‘You would wish to enlarge your studies?’ asks he presently. For the first time since she came towards him, in the garden outside, she now lets her eyes rest frankly upon his. ‘Oh, if I could!’ says she. ‘That is very easily to be managed, I should think. You have three hundred a year of your own, and can command advantages that hitherto, I imagine, from what you say, have been withheld from you.’ He waits a moment, as if expecting her to speak, to make some comment on his words, but she remains mute. ‘If you could tell me something of yourself—your history—what brought you to this,’ says Wyndham, ‘it might make matters simpler for both you and me.’ The girl shrinks backwards as though he had struck her. ‘No, no!’ cries she quickly. CHAPTER XI. ‘I wept in my dream, for I fancied That you had forsaken me; I woke, and all night I lay weeping Till morning, bitterly.’ Wyndham lifts his brows. ‘Pray do not distress yourself,’ says he. ‘It is a free country; you can speak or be silent, just as you wish. It had merely occurred to me that there might be friends of yours naturally very anxious about you, and that I might convey to them a message from you.’ The unsympathetic nature of his tone has restored the girl to her usual manner more than anything else could have done. She glances at him. ‘Friends!’ says she bitterly. ‘At all events,’ says Wyndham, who has now begun to acknowledge his curiosity with regard to her even to himself, and is determined on pushing the matter as far as possible, ‘there must be someone on the look-out for you.’