Bella shook herself free and grew pale. "It was your father who struck the blow!" she said in a low, horrified tone. "Yes. And if my father killed your father, how can we marry?" There was a dead silence, and the unfortunate lovers looked at one another with white faces. If Cyril's surmise was true, a barrier had indeed been placed between them, and for the moment they saw no chance of over-leaping it. Quite oblivious of Durgo, they stared until the black man grew impatient of the silence. "What does this mean?" he growled, looking from one to the other. "I come to find my master, Edwin Lister, and he is not here. But I find one who calls himself the son of my master, Edwin Lister." He peered into Cyril's face. "My master never told me that he had a son, and yet"--he looked again--"I believe that you are my master's son." "Am I so like my father, then?" asked Cyril smiling faintly. Durgo struck his huge hands together. "The same in every way," he said firmly; "figure and face and colour and walk. Even the clothes"--he ran his eyes over Cyril's grey suit--"yes, even the clothes." "Oh!" It was Bella who spoke. "Cyril, do you remember that the grey clothes worn by your father on that night aided me to make a mistake?" Lister nodded. "That was a suit of mine," he said, "made for me. When my father came home from Nigeria he had no ready-made clothes, so he borrowed that suit until he could get fitted out in civilised garments. Well?" Cyril addressed this last question to Durgo, who had started violently when Nigeria was mentioned. "I am a Nigerian," he said in reply to the inquiry. "I was with your father at Ogrude, on the Cross River, for years. I came with him to London three months ago; but my master never said that he had a son." "He had his reasons for keeping silence, no doubt," said Cyril quietly; "but I never saw you, Durgo, nor did I hear my father mention you." "Yet you know my name," said the man suspiciously. "Only because Miss Huxham mentioned it when you appeared just now." "And I mentioned it to you before," Bella reminded him. "I told you how Durgo entered the Bleacres drawing-room and took your photograph, frame and all, from his pocket, and handed it to the girl." "I thought that it was one of my master, Edwin Lister, taken when he was younger," he said simply, "but I see----" "Yes! yes!" broke in Cyril impatiently. "I know what you see. I am a younger edition of my father." "Yes! yes! yes!" cried Durgo, staring again. "Never did I see two so alike." Bella glanced at the photograph and slipped it into her pocket. Her face was pearly white, and she dreaded the full explanation of what was to come. "We are still perplexed," she said quietly, and controlling herself with great difficulty. "You know nothing of Durgo, and he knows nothing of you. I think it will be best for us to sit down and discuss the matter quietly."