"I shall be very glad to help you if I can," he said coldly; and then he waited for her to say more.

"Mrs. Baynhurst has sent me away," the girl said; she spoke still in that same sharp, stiff way. "A letter came from Paris this morning by a midday post, but as I have been out all day I did not get it till late this afternoon. I have brought it with me so that you can read it."

Mr. Haverford looked annoyed.

He objected strongly to interfere in anything which concerned his mother.

"I am afraid it is not possible for me to go into this matter with you," he said. "I have nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Baynhurst's affairs."

The girl answered him sharply, authoritatively.

"Some one _must_ listen to me, and as you are her son, I consider it your duty to do so."

At this he wheeled round.

This kind of tone was a new experience to him in these latter days, when every one who approached him had a soft word on their lips, and a subservient suggestion in their manner.

"I think you have made a mistake," he said, thoroughly annoyed now; "if my mother has seen fit to dispense with your services she has, no doubt, the very best reason for doing so. You must apply to her. As I have just said, this is a matter in which I could not possibly interfere at any time. And now----"

"And now," said Caroline Graniger, with a short laugh, "you want to go back to your guests; to your dinner!" She shrugged her shoulders. "Then go. I was a fool to come."

She left the fireplace and walked past him to the door, but before she could get there Rupert Haverford made a move forward.

"Wait," he said. He had suddenly caught a glimpse of her face; it wore an expression that was eloquent enough to him.

She paused, and stood biting her lip and blinking her eyes to keep back her agitation. Young as she was, she suggested an element of strength.

"I have not very much time at my disposal," said Rupert quickly, "but tell me exactly what has happened. If I can help you I will."

She did not answer him immediately. When she did, that sharp, almost pert, tone had gone from her voice.

"I know quite well I have not given Mrs. Baynhurst satisfaction," she said, "though I have tried my very best to fall in with her ways. But she is not very easy. She does not make allowances. If it were only that I should not complain...." She bit her lip again, "if I am not good enough for her as a secretary she is quite right to get some one else; but she ought to have prepared me, not dismiss me in this way. I did not go to her of my own accord. She took me away from the school where I have been living for so many years. I was given to understand that she was my guardian, but I suppose that cannot be true, or she would not write to me as she has written now," she broke off abruptly.

"What are my mother's orders?" asked Haverford very quietly.

"She says I am to go away at once, as she has no further use for me. In her letter she writes that as she intends to remain in Paris for some time, the house in Kensington is to be shut up immediately. In fact"--the girl gave a shrug of her thin shoulders--"this is already done. I find that some one has been good enough to pack my few things in a box, and the only maid who remains informed me that she, too, had heard from Mrs. Baynhurst, and that by her mistress's orders I was to leave at once...."

She looked at Rupert very steadily, and there was something of contempt in the expression of her dark eyes.

"Your mother is proverbially careless, Mr. Haverford," she said drily; "she never troubles herself about those small things that are called duties by other people, so I suppose it has not even dawned on her that by cutting me adrift in this way she puts me in a very awkward position. And yet I don't know why I should suppose her in ignorance of this," Caroline Graniger added the next moment, "for our life together has been so miserably uncomfortable that I dare say she is glad to have such a good opportunity of getting rid of me. You see," she smiled faintly, "I cannot possibly annoy her when she is so far away. She knows, of course, that I should have not merely required, but demanded, an explanation if she had dismissed me herself, but she hopes, no doubt, that I shall accept the inevitable if she remains out of reach for some time; or," with a shrug of her shoulders, "she may possibly hope that some good chance, such as dest.i.tution, may take me out of her way altogether. I have not a penny in the world," the girl said in that same harsh, sharp way, "and no one to whom I can turn for advice or help. Please understand that this is my only excuse for coming to you."

Then, before Mr. Haverford had time to speak, she went on eagerly--

"Above all things, I want to know something about myself. It is no new thing for me to feel lonely. I have always been one by myself. Perhaps I should have gone on accepting everything that came and asked no questions if this had not happened, but to-night I feel so ... so lost, so bewildered to know what to do: to understand...." She cleared her throat and looked pleadingly at Rupert Haverford. "As you belong to Mrs. Baynhurst, perhaps you can answer my questions, perhaps you can tell me why she took me away from the school where I have lived ever since I can remember, why I was told she had the right to take me away?"

Haverford had moved to the fireplace, and was standing there looking at her with contracted brows.

He listened with a sense of the greatest discomfort, and even uneasiness.

"Believe me," he said when he spoke, "if I could answer those questions I would do so most gladly, but I am an absolute stranger to all that pa.s.ses in my mother's life. I know you were her secretary, but she has had a number of secretaries, and in this, as in other things, she acts for herself absolutely. She has never spoken to me about you." Here he paused. "If it is true that she called herself your guardian, this is a matter about which I know nothing. I am sorry," he finished abruptly.

"Sit down," he said all at once, "you must be tired."

She had turned very white, and she sat down in the chair. For an instant her eyes closed, and in that spell of silence he saw how young she was, scarcely more than a child.

He was accustomed by this time to come in contact with all sorts of trouble, with the sordid misery of the very poor, the hopeless, pathetic endurance of those who have to keep a brave front to the world whilst they are literally starving. Sorrow was a well-worn study, and there was no mistake about the story written on that young, white face.

She opened her eyes almost directly.

"I--I beg that you will not let me detain you," she said in that sharp, proud way; then more proudly still she added, "I am sorry now that I came."

"On the contrary," said Rupert Haverford, "I am glad that you came. You did quite rightly. Though I have made it a principle never to mix in my mother's affairs, this appears to me to be a matter which requires investigation. As you have just said yourself, she acts with no conventional basis, doubtless she does not in the least grasp the meaning of your real position. You must permit me to charge myself with the care of you till we have communicated with Mrs. Baynhurst."

The girl did not answer him immediately; the gaze of her dark eyes had gone beyond him and was resting on the blaze of the fire.

"I don't want to be a trouble to anybody," she said, "I am really very independent, and very strong. I would not have come to you to-night,"

she added, "if I had been able to go to the school where I lived for so many years; but this is lost to me now. That is where I have been to-day. The black fog choked me, and as I knew I was not wanted, that there was nothing for me to do, I determined to have a little holiday.

I borrowed a few shillings from the parlourmaid, and I went down into the country. There was no fog there. It was cold, but it was fresh and beautiful. I walked ever so far. It was silly, but I lost my way. I did not expect to be very warmly welcomed, for I believe I was kept out of charity for a great number of years, but I thought perhaps _somebody_ might be glad to see me. However, when I got to the old familiar house it was empty. There was a board saying that it was to let. It looked so desolate!..." She sighed faintly. "It took me a long time to get back to Kensington, and when I did arrive it was to find my box packed in the hall, and nothing before me but the doorstep."

"Come nearer the fire," said Rupert "I am going to send you in some dinner. I really must leave you for a little while, but I will come back again. Won't you make yourself comfortable? You had better take off your coat and hat...."

She got up at once and he helped her to remove the coat. She was painfully thin. When her hat was off he saw that she had ma.s.ses of dark hair. But he scarcely realized what her appearance was, her story had surprised and troubled him sharply. He pushed a cosy chair near the fire, and gave her some papers to look at, and then hurried away.

His guests were scattered about the house.

On his way to join them Mr. Haverford paused to give Harper orders to take in some food at once to Miss Graniger.

"See that she has everything that she wants," he said.

By his tone the manservant understood that the girl who had come so unexpectedly was to be treated with the utmost courtesy.

This done, Haverford made his way up the stairs.

Mrs. Brenton was waiting for him almost impatiently.

"I shall come here every day whilst I am in town," she declared, "and even then I am sure I shall always find something fresh to admire! I congratulate you, Mr. Haverford; you have a beautiful home!"

"My house is beautiful," he corrected; "I sometimes feel I have no home. All my tastes are for small and simple things. This is so large, so much too splendid for me. It always feel so empty...."

"Oh! but you are going to change all that," Agnes Brenton said with a little laugh.

He took her to look at the portrait of Matthew Woolgar, the work of one of the greatest of modern painters, a _chef d'oeuvre_ in its way.

"It's a living portrait," Haverford said. "Just fancy, Mrs. Brenton, I knew that man all my life, and I don't think he ever said a kind word to me. There was not the slightest sign of any sort to let me feel that he troubled himself about me one way or other." He was speaking with an effort, for all the time his thoughts were busy with the girl whom he had left in the study below. Naturally it was not a great astonishment to him to hear that his mother should be careless and indifferent to the welfare of others. The woman who could turn her back as she had done on her own little child, could not be blessed with too much sympathy or womanly thought; still, if this girl's story was true--and he saw no reason to doubt it--his mother was now guilty of a definitely cruel act, for which he failed in this moment to find any possible explanation.

"Have you a portrait of your father?" Mrs. Brenton asked, after a little while, as they wandered round.

"Yes, but not here," answered Rupert Haverford. "I have a few old photographs, but those are in my bedroom, and there is a sketch of him in water-colours in my study--that is a room downstairs," he added.