right to the name I am called by; my cousins in the Market
Place think we should use some other, but we do not even know what our
real name would be. When my grandmother married old Mr Joliffe, she
had already a son two or three years old. This son was my father, and
Mr Joliffe adopted him; but my grandmother had no right to any but
her maiden name. We never knew what that was, though my father tried
all his life to find it out, and thought he was very near finding out
when he fell into his last illness. We think his head must have been
affected, for he used to say strange things about his parentage.
Perhaps the thought of this disgrace troubled him, as it has often
troubled me, though I never thought it would trouble me so much as
now.

"I have not told my aunt about what you have said to me, and no one
else shall ever know it, but it will be the sweetest memory to me of
all my life.

"Your very sincere friend,

"Anastasia Joliffe."

It was finished at last; she had slain all her hopes, she had slain her
love. He would never marry her, he would never come near her again; but
she had unburdened herself of her secret, and she could not have married
him with that secret untold. It was three o'clock when she crept back
again to bed. The fire had gone out, she was very cold, and she was
glad to get back to her bed. Then Nature came to her aid and sent her
kindly sleep, and if her sleep was not dreamless, she dreamt of dresses,
and horses, and carriages, of men-servants, and maid-servants, of Lady
Blandamer's great house of Fording, and of Lady Blandamer's husband.

Lord Blandamer also sat up very late that night. As he read before
another bedroom fire he turned the pages of his book with the utmost
regularity; his cigar never once went out. There was nothing to show
that his thoughts wandered, nothing to show that his mind was in any way
preoccupied. He was reading Eugenid's "Aristeia" of the pagans martyred
under Honorius; and weighed the pros and cons of the argument as
dispassionately as if the events of the afternoon had never taken place,
as if there had been no such person as Anastasia Joliffe in the world.

Anastasia's letter reached him the next day at lunch, but he finished
his meal before opening it. Yet he must have known whence it came, for
there was a bold "Bellevue Lodge" embossed in red on the flap of the
envelope. Martin Joliffe had ordered stamped paper and