"Though your questions are rather unceremonious, my lord, for a perfect stranger," Langford replied, "I will not scruple to answer them. I was born in a small town in this country." "Not in France?" demanded the Earl, quickly. "I do not ask without a motive--not in France? Are you certain it was not in France?" "Perfectly certain," replied Langford. "My mother's family, however, were French--related to the illustrious family of Beaulieu." "So," said the Earl, "so! How nearly are you related to that family?--are you sure not in France?" "Quite certain," replied Langford. "I have lived much in France, which may have given me some slight foreign accent; and as to my relationship to the Beaulieus, I can really hardly tell how near. I have only heard my mother say that she was nearly related to them." "It cannot be! It cannot be!" said the Earl, drooping his head, and looking down upon the ground. "Is your mother living?" A cloud came over Langford's brow: "She is not," he said. The Earl again seemed interested. "How long has she been dead?" he asked. "About two years," Langford replied, and thereupon the Earl once more shook his head, saying, "It cannot be. You are very like the late Marquis of Beaulieu," he added--"extremely like; and though circumstances have compelled me to discontinue my acquaintance with that family, I knew the Marquis once, and loved him well. I could have almost fancied that you were his son, and for his sake I cannot regard you with any other eyes than those of kindness. But yet what do I say?" he continued, while his brow again grew dark. "They tell me you have murdered my son, my only son. How strange, if the son of the man who had so nearly killed the father, should, five-and-twenty years after, have slain the son!" "You forget, my lord, and you mistake altogether," replied Langford. "In the first place, I am not the son of the Marquis of Beaulieu; and, in the next place, I assure you most solemnly by all I hold dear--I pledge you my honour as a gentleman and a soldier, and my oath as a Christian and a man--that I have had no more share in this unfortunate event than you have."