g, he hasn't a passion in him. He's
like this: from the moment he had ceased to get any good of frequenting
your house, even if you had not done the smallest thing to vex him, he
would pass on a bit of gossip harmful to you for the simple glory of
appearing for one moment a little better informed than the rest. No more
than that. He would be capable of that; he wouldn't even have to hate
you. For Charlie Hunt, as Leslie once perspicaciously said--Charlie Hunt
has no real inside!"

Both women sat staring at Gerald, impressed by his heat. When he
stopped, they continued for a minute in blank silence, revolving his
words and readjusting their estimates, while their eyes traveled up and
down, up and down the room, drawn after his figure that wrathily paced
the floor.

"How do you suppose he found out about the black crow? For I'm perfectly
sure he didn't know me at the time," said Aurora presently.

"That might easily enough happen in some roundabout way," said Estelle,
"as long as Italo and Clotilde both knew it. They might let the cat out
of the bag without intending to. He talks so much. Never knew such a
talker. But what I want to know is how he knew your name was Barton."

"I've told you what I think. He's heard you call me Nell. Tom, too,
called me Nell. That may have given him the hint. Then he simply opened
Iona Allen's letter and read it. Something was in it, no doubt, that
enabled him to put two and two together. Perhaps the name Bewick. Iona
would have heard of that. She would write to say now I'd climbed out of
poverty and hard work she knew I wouldn't mind lending a hand to an old
friend not so fortunate. Something like that. She'd be sure to whine and
beg. And Charlie Hunt, little bunch of meanness! would imagine he could
hold over me the fact that I was poor once and what he would think low
in the scale, because he thought I'd be ashamed of it. But no such
thing. If I changed my name coming here, it wasn't on any such account
as that. I'm gladder than ever now that I told Mrs. Foss all about it. I
did, Gerald, quite soon after we first came, and she said, though it was
in a way a mistake, she didn't see any real harm in it. As long as I'd
begun that way, she said, better not make a sensation by changing back
or saying anything about it. She thought my reasons were very natural.
It wasn't as if I were misleading anybody, or anybody were losing money
by me. I'd have told you too, Gerald, in a minute, as far