d admired; was instantly conscious
of the sheer pleasure of her beauty. But it was the pleasure of an
artist, an elder brother--a father even. Her mother was in his mind, and
the strong affection he had begun to feel for his ward was shot through
and through by the older tenderness.

"Sit there, dear," he said, pushing forward a chair. "Has Geoffrey told
you anything?"

"No. He said you wanted to tell me something yourself, and he would speak
to the others."

She was very pale, and the hand he touched was cold. But she was
perfectly self-possessed.

He sat down in front of her collecting his thoughts.

"Something has happened, Helena, to-day--this very evening--which must--I
fear--alter all your plans and mine. The poor woman whom Geoffrey saw in
the wood, whose bag you found, was just able to make her escape, when you
and Geoffrey landed. She wandered about the rest of the night, and in the
early morning she asked for shelter--being evidently ill--at the Rectory,
but it was not till this evening that she made a statement which induced
them to send for me. Helena!--what did your mother ever tell you about my
marriage?"

"She told me very little--only that you had married someone abroad--when
you were studying in Paris--and that she was dead."

Buntingford covered his eyes with his hand.

"I told your mother, Helena, all I knew. I concealed nothing from
her--both what I knew--and what I didn't know."

He paused, to take from his pocket a small leather case and to extract
from it a newspaper cutting. He handed it to her. It was from the first
column of the _Times_, was dated 1907, and contained the words:--"On July
19th at Lyons, France, Anna, wife of Philip Bliss, aged 28."

Helena read it, and looked up. Buntingford anticipated the words that
were on her lips.

"Wait a moment!--let me go on. I read that announcement in the _Times_,
Helena, three years after my wife had deserted me. I had spent those
three years, first in recovering from a bad accident, and then in
wandering about trying to trace her. Naturally, I went off to Lyons at
once, and could discover--nothing! The police there did all they could to
help me--our own Embassy in Paris got at the Ministry of the
Interior--useless! I recovered the original notice and envelope from the
_Times_. Both were typewritten, and the Lyons postmark told us no more
than the notice had already told. I could only carry on my search, and
for some years afterwards, ev