Mr Yorke went out in the quickly fading spring afternoon with an air of seriousness and resolution, which, indeed, had been upon his countenance all day; but which was not much like the expression of a holiday visitor. He had a long drive out to the northern outskirts of London, across those miles on miles of insignificant streets which are almost more imposing in their shabby dreariness than the more important portions of the greatest of cities. But though they wearied him with endless lines of shabbiness and monotony, the mind of the stranger was not sufficiently at liberty to make any reflection upon them. It was twilight before he reached, mounting upwards slowly for the last mile or so, the suburban heights to which he was bound. He dismissed his cab at the entrance to a leafy lane, lined on each side with detached houses, which were scarcely perceptible among the bare trees and thick hedges. To the servant who admitted him he gave a name which was certainly not that which he had borne an hour before in his hotel. The house which he entered just at the moment of twilight, before the lamps were lighted, was very warmly carpeted and curtained, and almost too warm in the air of its balmy soft interior. He waited for a moment in the hall, with an extraordinary gravity--the seriousness of painful restrained excitement on his face. Then a door opened suddenly, and a lady came out carrying a candle in her hand. The light shone pleasantly upon a fresh face and pretty eyes, undimmed by some fifty years of life; but those eyes were puckered up with a curious, anxious, alarmed gaze, looking into the darkness. She advanced hurriedly for two or three steps, then stopped short in front of the stranger, examining him not without some distress in her look. “Leonard Crosthwaite?” she said, “it is very many years since we have heard that name. Is it some distant cousin we know nothing about? or is it---- is it----” “It is I, Mary. We have not seen each other for thirty years--but I should have known you anywhere, I think. Certainly, here, in the old house.” She held up her candle and gazed at him, then shook her head slowly. “It is so sudden,” she said. “It is such a long time----” “And you did not expect to see me, while I expected--hoped--to see you.” Then he put out his hand. “Mary--you are not still Mary--not a Crosthwaite still, as in the old time? No--I can see that. You have married, and had children--like me.” This drew a faint little smile from her in spite of herself. “Yes, I have married. I have a son as tall as you. I am a widow. I---- Oh, but I don’t know if I ought to enter into family particulars. How am I to know that you are--Leonard? You are--a little like him.” “Is there any reason why you should hesitate to own me?” he said, half sternly, yet with a smile.