'She was my mother.'

'Your mother THERE!' She withdrew herself to look at him silently
in her interest.

'Elfride,' said Stephen, 'I was going to tell you the remainder
to-morrow--I have been keeping it back--I must tell it now, after
all. The remainder of my revelation refers to where my parents
are. Where do you think they live? You know them--by sight at any
rate.'

'I know them!' she said in suspended amazement.

'Yes. My father is John Smith, Lord Luxellian's master-mason, who
lives under the park wall by the river.'

'O Stephen! can it be?'

'He built--or assisted at the building of the house you live in,
years ago. He put up those stone gate piers at the lodge entrance
to Lord Luxellian's park. My grandfather planted the trees that
belt in your lawn; my grandmother--who worked in the fields with
him--held each tree upright whilst he filled in the earth: they
told me so when I was a child. He was the sexton, too, and dug
many of the graves around us.'

'And was your unaccountable vanishing on the first morning of your
arrival, and again this afternoon, a run to see your father and
mother?...I understand now; no wonder you seemed to know your way