ou see?'

'I saw the shadow of yourself putting a cloak round a lady. I was at the
side door; you two were in a room with the window towards me. You came
to me a moment later.'

'She was my mother.'

'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silently in her
interest.

'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainder
to-morrow--I have been keeping it back--I must tell it now, after all.
The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents are. Where do
you think they live? You know them--by sight at any rate.'

'I know them!' she said in suspended amazement.

'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's master-mason, who lives
under the park wall by the river.'

'O Stephen! can it be?'

'He built--or assisted at the building of the house you live in, years
ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entrance to Lord
Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees that belt in your
lawn; my grandmother--who worked in the fields with him--held each tree
upright whilst he filled in the earth: they told me so when I was a
child. He was the sexton, too, and dug many of the graves around us.'

'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your
arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father and
mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way about
the village!'

'No wonder. But remember, I have not lived here since I was nine years
old. I then went to live with my uncle, a blacksmith, near Exonbury, in
order to be able to attend a national school as a day scholar; there
was none on this remote coast then. It was there I met with my friend
Knight. And when I was fifteen and had been fairly educated by the
school-master--and more particularly by Knight--I was put as a pupil in
an architect's office in that town, because I was skilful in the use
of the pencil. A full premium was paid by the efforts of my mother
and father, rather against the wishes of Lord Luxellian, who likes my
father, however, and thinks a great deal of him. There I stayed till six
months ago, when I obtained a situation as improver, as it is called, in
a London office. That's all of me.'

'To think YOU, the London visitor, the town man, should have been
born here, and have known this village so many years before I did. How
strange--how very strange it seems to me!' she murmured.

'My mother curtseyed to you and your father last Sunday,' said Stephen,