you wish to speak to me."

Yes, the voice was the same, too, and so were the expression, the
intonation, the attitude, everything. But the words brought him back to
the present, and to the recollection of all that had happened since that
walk in the country lane.

"Yes, Miss Vane," he heard himself saying, "I have taken the liberty of
calling to ask you if you would have any objection to a little
conversation with me. I won't detain you more than half an hour."

"With pleasure," she said; "but won't you sit down?" she went on,
seating herself on the sofa. "I suppose I am right in thinking that you
are Mr. Vane Maxwell's father, and I suppose, too, you are the gentleman
who was at the corner of Warwick Gardens when he got out of the cab? I'm
afraid you were a good bit shocked," she continued, smiling rather
faintly.

"I was not by any means so much shocked as astonished," Sir Arthur
replied gravely, "and, to avoid any misunderstanding, I had better say
at once that, though I was naturally a little bit startled, I was
infinitely more astonished, by the marvellous likeness----"

"What, to him!" said Miss Carol, interrupting him with a pretty little
gesture of deprecation. "Yes, of course, I can quite understand that a
gentleman like you would be a bit disgusted to find a likeness between
your son and a girl like me, for I suppose he told you all about me? I
mean, you know the sort of disreputable person that I am?"

Miss Carol said this with a distinct note of defiance in her voice. A
note which seemed to say, "I know what I am, and so do you, and if you
don't want to talk to me any longer you needn't." But she was
considerably astonished when Sir Arthur, leaning forward in his chair
and speaking very gravely, said:

"My dear child--you are younger than Vane, you know, and I may call you
that without offence--I do know what you are, or perhaps it would be
more just to say what circumstances have made you. I don't want you to
think that I have come here to preach at you. That is no business of
mine. Still, I am deeply grieved, though I daresay you have no notion
why--I mean no notion of the real reason. I am afraid I am expressing
myself very awkwardly, but just now I don't quite seem to be able to
keep my thoughts in order."

There was something in the gentle gravity of his tone and manner which
inspired Miss Carol with an unaccountable desire to go away and cry. She
didn't exactly know why, but she was certainly