"That is impossible," Jill replied, and he flushed at her want of faith in his veracity. "But as you are determined to keep your counsel until you discover how much I know I had better speak out I suppose. You are not free to propose matrimony to me." St. John's eyebrows went up with a jerk. "Indeed!" he said. "Your statement is news to me, so also is the very low idea you have formed of my character. In what way am I not free? Do you mean that there is someone else?" Jill nodded; she could find no words. "And the lady's name?" he questioned in peremptory tones. "Miss Bolton," she answered with a visible effort. "I have recently learnt from unquestionable authority that you have been engaged to your cousin for some months." St. John started, pulled thoughtfully at his moustache for a moment, and then looking up sharply,-- "The name of your informant?" he asked. "Never mind that," Jill answered, "my informant was in a position to know. I have tried to but cannot doubt the assertion." "And yet you seem to find it easy enough to doubt mine," he said. She made no reply; and striding up to her he caught her by the shoulders and transfixed her with a gaze at once stern and reproachful. "Speak," he exclaimed. "I will know who is the lying, interfering mischief-maker who has spread such abominable reports about me." Jill swayed slightly in his grip, and her glance met his in wide-eyed questioning as though she would read his very soul. "Ah!" she cried, "if it were false! if it were only false!" "The name?" he repeated impatiently, and almost shook her in his excitement. She hesitated still for a minute, then the answer came unwillingly, more as though his glance compelled the truth than that she gave it voluntarily. "It was your father," she half-whispered, and her eyes sought the floor and stayed there as though she dreaded reading what she might see in his face. He stared at her for a moment, then he pushed her from him with a laugh. "Unquestionable authority certainly," he said moodily, and laughed again. Jill remained motionless watching him, uncertain whether he intended denying the allegation or not, and he stood opposite in a towering rage glowering back at her with his brows drawn together in the old bad-tempered scowl. "I suppose," he went on after a pause, "that he communicated this intelligence to you between the time of your writing to me and my first appearance at the art school after your illness?" "Yes," she replied, "on the Thursday." "That accounts for your inexplicable bad temper that Friday," he resumed unpleasantly. "Information from such a source must certainly have been convincing, far more convincing than my contradiction. But did it not strike you to doubt the authenticity of the signature?" "It was a word of mouth communication," Jill answered coldly, "Mr St. John honoured me with a visit." "He came here?" repeated her hearer aghast. "My father? Impossible!"