well-known, uneventful road, where holiday people strolled on
Sundays? Had I really left, little more than an hour since, the
quiet, decent, conventionally domestic atmosphere of my mother's
cottage? I was too bewildered--too conscious also of a vague sense
of something like self-reproach--to speak to my strange companion
for some minutes. It was her voice again that first broke the
silence between us.

"I want to ask you something," she said suddenly. "Do you know
many people in London?"

"Yes, a great many."

"Many men of rank and title?" There was an unmistakable tone of
suspicion in the strange question. I hesitated about answering
it.

"Some," I said, after a moment's silence.

"Many"--she came to a full stop, and looked me searchingly in the
face--"many men of the rank of Baronet?"

Too much astonished to reply, I questioned her in my turn.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because I hope, for my own sake, there is one Baronet that you
don't know."

"Will you tell me his name?"