"Who's the nice-looking girl in black with her hair parted in the middle?" she asked. "Mr. Bullsom's niece. She is quite charming, and most intelligent."

"Dear me!" Mrs. Huntingdon remarked. "I had no idea she had anything to do with the family. Sort of a Cinderella look about her now you mention it. Couldn't you get her to come over and talk to me? I'm horribly afraid of Mrs. Bullsom. She'll come out of that dress if she tries to talk, and I know I shall laugh."

"I'm sure I can," Brooks answered, rising with alacrity. "I'll bring her over in a minute."

Mary had just finished arranging a card-table when Brooks drew her on one side.

"About that subject!" he began.

"We shall scarcely have time to talk about it now, shall we?" she answered. "You will be wanted to play cards or something. We shall be quite content to leave it to you."

"I should like to talk it over with you," he said. "Do tell me when I may see you."

She sat down, and he stood by her chair. "Really, I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps I shall be at home when you pay your duty call."

"Come and have some tea at Mellor's with me to-morrow."

She seemed not to hear him. She had caught Mrs. Seventon's eye across the room, and rose to her feet.

"You have left Mrs. Seventon alone all the evening," she said. "I must go and talk to her."

He stood before her--a little insistent.

"I shall expect you at half-past four," he said.

She shook her head.

Oh, no. I have an engagement."

"The next day, then."

"Thank you! I would rather you did not ask me. I have a great deal to do just now. I will bring the girls to the lecture."

"Wednesday week," he protested, "is a long way off."

"You can go over to Enton," she laughed, "and get some more cheques from your wonderful friend."

"I wonder," he remarked, "why you dislike Lord Arranmore so much."

"Instinct perhaps--or caprice," she answered, lightly.

"The latter for choice," he answered. "I don't think that he is a man to dislike instinctively. He rather affected me the other way."

She was suddenly graver.

"It is foolish of me," she remarked. "You will think so too, when I tell you that my only reason is because of a likeness."

"A likeness!" he repeated.

She nodded.

"He is exactly like a man who was once a friend of my father's, and who did him a great deal of harm. My father was much to blame, I know, but this man had a great influence over him, and a most unfortunate one.

Now don't you think I'm absurd?"

"I think it is a little rough on Lord Arranmore," he answered, "don't you?"

"It would be if my likes or dislikes made the slightest difference to him," she answered. "As it is, I don't suppose it matters."

"Was this in England?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No, it was abroad--in Montreal. I really must go to Mrs. Seventon.

She looks terribly bored."

Brooks made no effort to detain her. He was looking intently at a certain spot in the carpet. The coincidence--it was nothing more, of course--was curious.

CHAPTER XIII

CHARITY THE "CRIME"

There followed a busy time for Brooks, the result of which was a very marked improvement in his prospects. For the younger Morrison and his partner, loth to lose altogether the valuable Enton connection, offered Brooks a partnership in their firm. Mr. Ascough, who was Lord Arranmore's London solicitor, and had been Brooks' guardian, after careful consideration advised his acceptance, and there being nothing in the way, the arrangements were pushed through almost at once. Mr.

Ascough, on the morning of his return to London, took the opportunity warmly to congratulate Brooks.

"Lord Arranmore has been marvellously kind to me," Brooks agreed. "To tell you the truth, Mr. Ascough, I feel almost inclined to add incomprehensibly kind."

The older man stroked his grey moustache thoughtfully.

"Lord Arranmore is eccentric," he remarked. "Has always been eccentric, and will remain so, I suppose, to the end of the chapter. You are the one who profits, however, and I am very glad of it."

"Eccentricity," Brooks remarked, "is, of course, the only obvious explanation of his generosity so far as I am concerned. But it has occurred to me, Mr. Ascough, to wonder whether the friendship or connection between him and my father was in any way a less slight thing than I have been led to suppose."

Mr. Ascough shrugged his shoulders.

"Lord Arranmore," he said, "has told you, no doubt, all that there is to be told."

Brooks sat at his desk, frowning slightly, and tapping the blotting-paper with a pen-holder.

"All that Lord Arranmore has told me," he said, "is that my father occupied a cabin not far from his on the banks of Lake Ono, that they saw little of each other, and that he only found out his illness by accident. That my father then disclosed his name, gave him his papers and your address. There was merely the casual intercourse between two Englishmen coming together in a strange country."

"That is what I have always understood," Mr. Ascough agreed. "Have you any reason to think otherwise?

"No definite reason--except Lord Arranmore's unusual kindness to me,"

Brooks remarked. "Lord Arranmore is one of the most self-centred men I ever knew--and the least impulsive. Why, therefore, he should go out of his way to do me a kindness I cannot understand."

"If this is really an enigma to you," Mr. Ascough answered, "I cannot help you to solve it. Lord Arranmore has been the reverse of communicative to me. I am afraid you must fall back upon his lordship's eccentricity."