“Found out?--oh, I found him out long ago--the day he tricked me into believing that I was still bound to him, though he had just pretended to set me free. But to-day--before lunch time--by the way, I have had no lunch yet!” Both girls laughed as aimlessly as negresses at this point, it seemed so ridiculous not to have had lunch. “Before lunch--he came to you?” suggested Amber. “Not he--not Launcelot but another--the other was a young woman--oh, quite good-looking, and wearing a very pretty Parma-violet velvet hat with ospreys, and a cashmere dress, with an Eton jacket trimmed with diagonal stripes of velvet to match the hat--oh, quite a nice girl. I had never seen her before--she had sent in her name--Miss Barbara Burden--such a sweet name, isn’t it?” “Quite charming! Who was she? I never heard the name.” “I had never heard the name. I fancied that she had come about a bazaar for the widows and orphans, so many strangers come about that, you know--but she hadn’t. I saw her. It was most amusing; but she was quite nice. She had the newspaper in her hand with that announcement--that horrid announcement-----” “I know--I know.” “‘Do you love that man, Miss West?’ she began, pointing to the paragraph.” “Good gracious! That was a beginning--and a total stranger!” “So I thought. Of course I became cold and dignified. ‘Have you not seen that I am going to marry Mr. Clifton?’ I asked in as chilling a voice as I could put on at a moment’s notice. ‘What I mean is this,’ said the young woman; ‘if you tell me that you are about to marry him because you love him, I will go away now and you will never hear anything of me again. But if you cannot say truly that you do love him I will tell you that the day you marry him I shall bring an action against him that will go far to ruin his career and to make you unhappy for the rest of your life unless you are very different from what I have heard you are, Miss West.’” “Heavens!” “I looked at her and saw that she was quite nice. ‘I cannot tell you that I love him,’ said I, ‘but I can tell you that I detest him, and that I love somebody else. Is that good enough for you to go on with?’ ‘Thank God!’ she cried quite fervently, and then she told me her story. Oh, there was nothing wicked in it. She is the daughter of a doctor in a town where he lived before he came to London. Her father was a man of influence in the town and Mr. Clifton became engaged to the girl--but in secret--no one was to know anything about it until he should find himself in a position to get her father’s consent.” “A country doctor: Mr. Clifton must have been in a small way even then.”