peated, astonished, and rather touched.
"Oh, Mark--poor Mark! Why didn't you ask me? I've never, never cared for
him in--in that sort of way. How could you think I did?"

"Yet you're here, in his house," he said, "acting (so you said in your
letter) as hostess to his guests? And surely you've always been on terms
of what most people would call close friendship with him?"

"Yes, I suppose I have"--she hesitated--"in a way. I've always felt
that, like me, he hadn't many real friends. And, of course, in old days,
ages ago, he was very fond of me," she smiled. "That always pleases a
woman, Mark."

"Does it?" he asked, probingly; and as only answer she reddened
slightly.

There came a little pause, and then Blanche exclaimed:

"I'm sorry, very sorry, if he's got into a new scrape, Mark; and I'm
surprised too. Some two years ago he married a rich woman; she died not
long after their marriage, but she was devoted to him, and he's quite
well off now."

"Did you know her?" asked Mark Gifford, in a singular tone.

"No, I never came across her. I was away--in Portugal, I think. He wrote
and told me about his marriage, and then, later, when his wife fell ill,
he wrote again. He was extremely good to her, Mark."

"D'you know much about Varick's early life?" he asked.

"I think I know all there is to know," she answered.

What was Mark getting at? What had Lionel Varick done? Her mind was
already busily intent on the thought of how disagreeable it would be to
have to warn him of impending unpleasantness.

It was good of Mark to have taken all this trouble! Of course, he had
taken it for her sake, and she felt very grateful--and still a little
frightened; he looked so unusually grave.

"What _do_ you know of Varick's early life?" he persisted.

"I don't think there's very much to know," she answered uneasily. "His
father had a place in Yorkshire, and got involved in some foolish, wild
speculations. In the end the man went bankrupt, everything was sold up,
and they were very poor for a while--horribly poor, I believe. Then the
elder Varick died, and his widow and Lionel went and lived at Bedford. I
gather Lionel's mother was clever, proud, and quarrelsome. At any rate,
she quarrelled with her people, and he had a very lonely boyhood and
youth."

"Then you know very little of how Varick lived before you yourself met
him? How old would he have been then, Blanche?"

"I should think four or five-and-twenty," she said hesi