tworthy.
Besides, the more people of the right sort know a secret, the better it
will be kept." Gwen had to release her lips from two paternal fingers to
say this. She followed it up by using them--she was near enough--to run
a trill of kisslets across the paternal forehead.

"Very good!" said the Earl. "Fire away!" It has been mentioned that Gwen
always got her will, somehow. This _how_ was the one she used with her
father. She told the whole tale without reserves; except, perhaps,
slight ones in respect of the son's misdeeds. They were not things to be
spoken of to a good, innocent father, like hers.

She answered an expression on his face, when she had finished,
with:--"As for any chance of the story not being true, that's
impossible."

"Then it must be true," was the answer. Not an illogical one!

"Don't agree meekly," says Gwen. "Meek agreement is contradiction....
What makes you think it fibs?"

"I don't think it fibs, my darling. Because I attach a good deal of
weight to the impression it has produced upon you. But other people
might, who did not know you."

"Other people are not to be told, so they are out of it.... Well,
perhaps that _has_ very little to do with the matter."

"Not very much. But tell me!--does the old lady give no names at all?"

"N-no!--I can remember none. Her real name is not Picture, of course ...
I should have said Prichard."

"I understand. But couldn't you get at her husband's name, to verify the
story?"

"I don't want it verified. Where's the use?... No, she hasn't told me a
single surname of any of the people.... Oh yes--stop a minute! Of
course she told me Prichard was a name in her family--some old nurse's.
But it's such a common name."

"Did she not say where she came from--where her family belonged?"

"Yes--Essex. But Essex is like Rutlandshire. Nobody has ever been to
either, or knows anyone that is there by nature."

"I didn't know that was the case, but I have no interest in proving the
contrary. Suppose you try to get at her husband's name--her real married
name. I could tell my man in Lincoln's Inn to hunt up the trial. Or even
if you could get the exact date it might be enough. There cannot have
been so very many fathers-in-laws' signatures forged in one year."

But Gwen did not like to press the old lady for information she was
reluctant to give, and the names of the family in Essex and the
delinquent remained untold; or, if told to Gwen, were concealed more