it is not
convenient?"

She went with him into a veranda covered with striped cotton, furnished
with a sofa and jardiniere, but rather dismal-looking with the rain
pattering on the zinc roof.

Jack said to himself, "I had better have written," and did not know what
to say first.

"Well?" said Charlotte, leaning her chin on her hand in that graceful
attitude that some women adopt when they listen. He hesitated a moment,
as one hesitates in placing a heavy load upon an etagere of trifles,
for that which he had to say seemed too much for that pretty little head
that leaned toward him.

"I should like--I should like to talk to you of my father," he said,
with some hesitation.

On the end of her tongue she had the words, "What folly!" If she did
not utter them, the expression of her face, in which were to be read
amazement and fear, spoke for her.

"It is too sad for us, my child, to discuss. But still, painful as
it is to me, I understand your feelings, and am ready to gratify you.
Besides," she added, solemnly, "I have always intended, when you were
twenty, to reveal to you the secret of your birth."

It was time now for him to look astonished. Had she forgotten that three
months previous she had made this disclosure. Nevertheless, he uttered
no protest, he wished to compare her story of to-day with an older
narration. How well he knew her!

"Is it true that my father was noble?" he asked, suddenly.

"Indeed he was, my child."

"A marquis?"

"No, only a baron."

"But I supposed--in fact, you told me--"

"No, no--it was the elder branch of the Bulac family that was noble."

"He was connected then with the Bulac family?"

"Most assuredly. He was the head of the younger branch."

"And his name was--"

"The Baron de Bulac--a lieutenant in the navy."

Jack felt dizzy, and had only strength to ask, "How long since he died?"

"O, years and years!" said Charlotte, hurriedly.

That his father was dead he was sure; but had his mother told him a
falsehood now, or on the previous occasion? Was he a De Bulac or a
L'Epau?

"You are looking ill, child," said Charlotte, interrupting herself in
the midst of a long romance she was telling, "your hands are like ice."

"Never mind, I shall get warm with exercise," answered Jack, with
difficulty.

"Are you going so soon? Well, it is best that you should get back before
it is late." She kissed him tenderly, tied a handkerchief around his
throat, and slipped some