"If you meet any of his old friends, don't--don't say anything! We've
just saved enough money to go to Sicily for the winter--that'll set
him right."

And then, barely a year later, the line in a London newspaper which had
reached him at Madrid, chronicling the death of Marriott Dalrymple, as
of a man once on the threshold of fame, but long since exiled from the
thoughts of practical men. Lady Rose, too, was dead--many years since;
so much he knew. But how, and where? And the child?

She was now "Mademoiselle Le Breton "?--the centre and apparently the
chief attraction of Lady Henry's once famous salon?

"And, by Jove! several of her kinsfolk there, relations of the mother or
the father, if what I suppose is true!" thought Sir Wilfrid, remembering
one or two of the guests. "Were they--was she--aware of it?"

* * * * *

The old man strode on, full of a growing eagerness, and was soon on Lady
Henry's doorstep.

"Her ladyship is in the dining-room," said the butler, and Sir Wilfrid
was ushered there straight.

"Good-morning, Wilfrid," said the old lady, raising herself on her
silver--headed sticks as he entered. "I prefer to come down-stairs by
myself. The more infirm I am, the less I like it--and to be helped
enrages me. Sit down. Lunch is ready, and I give you leave to eat some."