"I knew the late Lord Blanchemain--I knew him fairly well," she
mentioned, always with a certain pensiveness.

"Oh--?" said he, politely interested.

"Yes," said she. "But I've never met his successor. The two were not, I
believe, on speaking terms. Of course,"--and her forthright British
candour carried her trippingly over the delicate ground,--"it's common
knowledge that the family is divided against itself--hostile branches--a
Protestant branch and a Catholic. The present lord, if I've got it
right, is a Catholic, and the late lord's distant cousin?"

"You've got it quite right," the young man assured her, with a nod, and
a little laugh. "They had the same great-great-grandfather. The last
few lords have been Protestants, but in our branch the family have never
forsaken the old religion."

"I know," said she. "And wasn't it--I've heard the story, but I'm a bit
hazy about it--wasn't it owing to your--is 'recusancy' the word?--that
you lost the title? Wasn't there some sort of sharp practice at your
expense in the last century?"

The young man had another little laugh.

"Oh, nothing," he answered, "that wasn't very much the fashion. The late
lord's great-grandfather denounced his elder brother as a Papist and a
Jacobite--nothing more than that. It was after the 'Forty-five. So the
cadet took the title and estates. But with the death of the late lord, a
dozen years or so ago, the younger line became extinct, and the title
reverted."