him that he was a county magistrate,
and parliamentary candidate for a somewhat difficult borough, where
his principal supporters were dissenters of strict principles who took
a zealous interest in his moral character. He temporized, and the girl
raised her eyes once more to his.

"You are the Sir John Ferringhall who has bought the Lyndmore estate,
are you not?" she remarked. "My father's sisters used once to live in
the old manor house. I believe you have had it pulled down, have you
not?"

"The Misses Pellissier!" he exclaimed. "Then your name----"

"My name is Pellissier. My father was Colonel Pellissier. He had an
appointment in Jersey, you know, after he left the army."

Sir John did not hesitate any longer. He sat down.

"Upon my word," he exclaimed, "this is most extraordinary. I----"

Then he stopped short, for he began to remember things. He was not
quite sure whether, after all, he had been wise. He would have risen
again, but for the significance of the action.

"Dear me!" he said. "Then some of your family history is known to me.
One of your aunts died, I believe, and the other removed to London."

The girl nodded.

"She is living there now," she remarked.

"Your father is dead too, I believe," he continued, "and your mother."

"Two years ago," she answered. "They died within a few months of one
another."

"Very sad--very sad indeed," he remarked uneasily. "I remember hearing
something about it. I believe that the common report was that you and
your sister had come to Paris to study painting."

She assented gently.

"We have a small studio," she murmured, "in the Rue de St. Pierre."

Sir John looked at her sideways. Her eyes were fixed upon the ground,
the pink colour coming and going in her cheeks was very delicate and
girlish. After all, this could never be the black sheep. He had been
quite right to sit down. It was astonishing how seldom it was that his
instincts betrayed him. He breathed a little sigh of satisfaction.

"Come," he continued, "the world after all is a very small place. We
are not altogether strangers, are we? I feel that under the
circumstances I have the right to offer you my advice, and if
necessary my help. I beg that you will consider me your friend."

She looked at him with fluttering eyelids--sweetly grateful. It was
such an unexpected stroke of fortune. Sir John was not used to such
glances, and he liked them.

"It is so difficult," she murmured, "so impossi