‘Such a pretty name!’ says Susan. ‘Why did you think we shouldn’t like it? So much nicer than Susan. Isn’t mine horrid? But what is your other name?’ Here they all start. A loud ring at the big gate over there has taken them from their own immediate concerns—to another. Ella turns deadly white, and shows a distinct desire to get behind Susan. Mrs. Denis is to be seen in the distance, flying towards the entrance-gate. Presently it is opened by her, and Wyndham walks in. CHAPTER XXVI. ‘“Mark ye,” he sings, “in modest maiden guise The red rose peeping from her leafy nest; Half opening, now half closed, the jewel lies: More bright her beauty seems, the more represt.”’ Wyndham pauses in the gateway, and then comes forward. His astonishment at seeing the two Barrys here is unbounded, so unbounded, indeed, that Ella, who has been the first to see him, and who therefore naturally has been the first to notice it, is quite frightened. She goes quickly to him. ‘It was my fault. I asked them to come in. Do you mind?’ ‘I mind? I quite understood that it was you who would mind,’ says he. There is no time for any more. Susan has come forward. ‘How d’ye do, Mr. Wyndham?’ says she. Wyndham gives her his hand mechanically, murmuring the usual meaningless, but courteous, words of greeting that are expected of one, no matter what worries lie on the heart, troubling and mystifying it. And Wyndham, in spite of his reputation of being one of the smartest barristers in Dublin, has, to tell the truth, been considerably mystified of late. The day after he left Ella, he had gone to that part of Dublin described by her as the place where the man Moore lived. A squalid place, though still with an air of broken respectability about it, and with quite an extraordinary number of ill-dressed urchins playing about the hall doorsteps. They were of that class, that though their garments were almost in rags they had still shoes and stockings, of sorts, on their feet, and an attempt at a frayed collar round their necks. It gave Wyndham a sense of disgust to think that the girl who was now living in his dainty cottage had once lived in such an atmosphere as this; and when he had gone down the hideous road twenty yards or so, the certainty that had begun at the first yard—that she could never have lived there—had deepened. But this idea gave him little comfort. If she had ever lived here, it was only, to say the least of it, deplorable. If she had not lived here, she had lied to him, and was an impostor. And if the latter supposition was true, he had rented his cottage to an impostor, and a clever one, too. She had taken him in, beyond all doubt. And he was looked upon as rather a bright and shining light amongst his _confrères_ at the Bar and at the University Club, and in the various other resorts for rising young men in Dublin.