She fixed her eye on him. 'I mean――I hardly can find words to adequately express my meaning. I would say――What name do you carry here?' 'I have told you, father. Winefred Holwood. Holwood is your name.' 'To be sure. Exactly. I wish I had my key, but they have deprived me of it. Yes, of course, inevitable. And your――I mean your――――' 'Mother?' 'Precisely. Is she also here?' 'No.' He breathed freer. 'And do they know?' 'By they, I suppose you mean Mrs. Tomkin-Jones and her daughters?' 'It is with them you are staying?' 'Yes――and they know nothing.' 'She――did she――I mean your mother――did she bring you to Bath?' 'No. Mrs. Jose did that.' 'Mrs. Jose, certainly. Charming. But who _is_ Mrs. Jose?' 'She is the farmer's wife at Bindon.' 'Bindon! Oh? I am again at fault. Bindon, very nice; but where _is_ Bindon?' 'Bindon is near where mother and I lived. Mrs. Jose has been very kind to us, that is, to mother and me, when all the folk in Seaton and Axmouth turned against us. She alone held to us and believed in mother. And mother said that it was your intention that I should be brought up as a lady, and she and Mrs. Jose put their heads together, and I have been sent here to Mrs. Tomkin-Jones.' 'Mrs. Tomkin-Jones! Delicious! Who is this lady?' 'I believe her husband was the maker of Bath. A most eminent physician. There is a story about him and a pill, but I do not know it.' 'I never heard of him, or of her, or of the pill.' 'But Mrs. Tomkin-Jones knows about you.' 'Merciful powers! Knows _what_!' The man quaked. 'That you are a relative of Lord Finnborough.' 'Finnborough! Finnborough has never done anything for me, although I believe there is some sort of a connection.' 'Then that, at least, is true. Here I do not know what is lies and what is truth. Will you sit down on this bench, sir? Mrs. Tomkin-Jones lives in the corner house yonder, with an eye looking this way and another that.' 'Do you think that her eye is on us now?' 'No; the sun shines in at it, so the blind is down.' 'How long do you remain with her?' Mr. Holwood's chin was too retreating for him to be able to lodge it on the handle of his umbrella, but he attempted to do so repeatedly, and as often failed. 'Till the rubbing and polishing are done. That will be long. I am harder than a chalcedony.' 'This is a dreadful shock to me.' 'A shock to meet your child?' 'I mean, I mean a surprise. I am taking the waters. Strong emotions I have been instructed to avoid. I am not well. A dreadful menace hangs over me, a sword of Damocles. I have been ordered here by my medical attendant. I feel unhinged at the news.' Then changing his tone, and disengaging his hand from the umbrella, he took Winefred's fingers in his nerveless grasp, and said, 'My child――yes, my child――it is soothing to the feelings――to the heart of a desolate, a sick, maybe a death-stricken man, to know that he has a child.' 'And a wife.' He winced and let go her hand.