“You are like all the men of your country, who are brave and noble,” she said. “You will do a great deed, but you do not like to be thanked. Yet we waited there for days, hoping to see you. I have looked for you wherever I have been since then, and to think that now--on this very saddest journey I have ever been forced to take--that I should call here, by accident, and the door should open, and you should walk in. Ah!” “It is quite a romance,” Adelaide Fortress remarked, with a faint smile upon her lips. “How grateful you must be that you came to see me this afternoon, Bruce! By the by, do you mind ringing the bell--unless you prefer stewed tea?” He got up and rang it with avidity. “I am glad you recognize the fact that we have come to tea,” he remarked. “Miss Ffolliot and I met at the gate. You ought to give us something specially good for venturing out on such a day.” “I will give you some Buszard’s cake,” she answered, laughing; “some kind friend sent it to me this morning. Only you mustn’t eat it all up; it has to last me for a week.” “How is your father, Miss Ffolliot?” the girl asked, turning to me abruptly. “I am sorry to say that he is very unwell,” I answered, “and he is obliged to keep to his room. And I am afraid that he will not be able to leave it for several days.” She did not appear much concerned. I watched her closely, and with much relief. “I am sorry,” she remarked, politely. “However, so far as I am concerned, I suppose after all there would be very little object in my seeing him. I have been to most of the oldest residents round here, and they all seem certain that they have never heard of the name Maltabar.” I saw Bruce Deville start, and the hand which held his teacup shook. Adelaide Fortress and he exchanged swift glances. The girl, whose eyes were scarcely off him for a moment, noticed it too, although I doubt if she attached the same significance to it. “You do not know--you have not heard recently of any one of that name?” she asked him. “Please tell me! I have a reason for being very much interested.” He shook his head. “If I have ever heard the name at all it must have been very long ago,” he said; “and certainly not in connection with this part of the world.” She sighed. “I suppose you do not know who I am, or why I am here,” she said. “My name I told you once, although I daresay you have forgotten it. It is Berdenstein. The man who was found dead, who was killed close to here, was my brother.” He murmured a few words of sympathy, but he showed no surprise. I suspected that he had known who she was and of her presence here before. “Of course I came here directly I heard of it,” she continued, ignoring us altogether, and talking only to him. “It is a terrible trouble to me, and he was the only relative I had left in the world. You cannot wonder, can you, that I want to find out all about it?”