"What will mamma say!" cried the young lady, aghast. "And Rupert; I dare say he's home to luncheon before this. Let us go back to the house, Mr.

Legard. I had no idea it was half so late."

Mr. Legard laughed frankly.

"The honesty of that speech is the highest flattery my conversational powers ever received, Miss Everard. I am very much obliged to you. Ah!

by Jove! Sir Rupert himself."

For riding slowly up under the sunlit trees, came the young baronet. As Mr. Legard spoke, his glance fell upon them, the young lady and gentleman advancing so confidentially, with half a dozen curly poodles frisking around them. To say Sir Rupert stared, would be a mild way of putting it--his eyes opened in wide wonder.

"Guy Legard!"

"Thetford! My dear Sir Rupert!"

The baronet leaped off his horse, his eyes lighting, and shook hands with the artist, in a burst of heartiness very rare with him.

"Where in the world did you drop from, and how under the sun do you come to be on such uncommonly friendly footing with Miss Everard?"

"I leave the explanation to Mr. Legard," said May, blushing a little under Sir Rupert's glance, "while I go and see mamma, only premising that luncheon-hour is past, and you had better not linger."

She tripped away, and the two young men followed more slowly into the house. Sir Rupert led his friend to his studio, and left him to inspect the pictures.

"Whilst I speak a word to my mother," he said; "it will detain me hardly an instant."

"All right!" said Mr. Legard, boyishly. "Don't hurry yourself on my account, you know."

Lady Thetford lay where her son had left her; lay as if she had hardly stirred since. She looked up, and half rose as he came in, her eyes painfully, intensely anxious. But his face, grave and quiet, told nothing.

"Well," she panted, her eyes glittering.

"It is well, mother. Aileen Jocyln has promised to become my wife."

"Thank God!"

Lady Thetford sunk back, her hands clasped tightly over her heart, its loud beating plainly audible. Her son looked down at her, his face keeping its steady gravity--none of the rapture of an accepted lover there.

"You are content, mother?"

"More than content, Rupert. And you?"

He smiled, and stooping, kissed the worn, pallid face. "I would do a great deal to make you happy, mother; but I would _not_ ask a woman I did not love to be my wife. Be at rest; all is well with me. And now I must leave you, if you will not go down to luncheon."

"I think not; I am not strong to-day. Is May waiting?"

"More than May. A friend of mine has arrived, and will stay with us for a few weeks."

Lady Thetford's face had been flushed and eager, but at the last words it suddenly blanched.

"A friend, Rupert! Who?"

"You have heard me speak of him before," he said, carelessly; "his name is Guy Legard."

CHAPTER XI.

ON THE WEDDING EVE.

The family at Thetford Towers were a good deal surprised, a few hours later that day, by the unexpected appearance of Lady Thetford at dinner.

Wan as some spirit of the moonlight, she came softly in, just as they entered the dining-room; and her son presented his friend, Mr. Legard, at once.

"His resemblance to the family will be the surest passport to your favor, mother mine," Sir Rupert said, gayly. "Mrs. Weymore met him just now, and recoiled with a shriek, as though she had seen a ghost.

Extraordinary, isn't it--this chance resemblance?"

"Extraordinary," Lady Thetford said, "but not at all unusual. Of course, Mr. Legard is not even remotely connected with the Thetford family?"

She asked the question without looking at him. She kept her eyes fixed on her plate, for that fair face before her was terrible to her almost as a ghost. It was the days of her youth over again, and Sir Noel, her husband, once more by her side.

"Not that I am aware of," Mr. Legard said, running his fingers through his abundant blonde hair. "But I may be, for all that. I am like the hero of a novel--a mysterious orphan--only, unfortunately, with no identifying strawberry-mark on my arm. Who my parents were, or what my real name is, I know no more than I do of the biography of the man in the moon."

There was a murmur of astonishment--May and Rupert vividly interested, Lady Thetford white as a dead woman, her eyes averted, her hand trembling as if palsied.

"No," said Mr. Legard, gravely, and a little sadly, "I stand as totally alone in this world as a human being can stand--father, mother, brother, sister, I never have known; a nameless penniless waif, I was cast upon the world four-and-twenty years ago. Until the age of twelve I was called Guy Vyking; then the friends with whom I had lived left England for America, and a man, a painter, named Legard, took me, and gave me his name. And there the romance comes in; a lady, a tall, elegant lady, too closely veiled for us to see her face, came to the poor home that was mine, paid those who kept me from my infancy, and paid Legard for his future care of me. I have never seen her since; and I sometimes think," his voice failing, "that she may have been my mother."

There was a sudden clash, and a momentary confusion. My lady, lifting her glass with that shaking hand, had let it fall, and it was shivered to atoms on the floor.

"And you never saw the lady after?" May asked.

"Never. Legard received regular remittances, mailed, oddly enough, from your town here--Plymouth. The lady told him, if he ever had occasion to address her, which he never did have, that I know of, to address Madam Ada, Plymouth! He brought me up, educated me, taught me his art, and died. I was old enough then to comprehend my position; and the first use I made of that knowledge, was to return 'Madam Ada' her remittances, with a few sharp lines, that effectually put an end to them."

"Have you ever tried to ferret out the mystery of your birth, and this Madam Ada?" inquired Sir Rupert.

Mr. Legard shook his head.

"No, why should I? I dare say I should have no reason to be proud of my parents if I did find them; and they evidently were not very proud of me. 'Where ignorance is bliss,' etc. If destiny has decreed it, I shall know, sooner or later; if destiny has not, then my puny efforts will be of no avail. But if presentiments mean anything, I shall one day know; and I have no doubt, if I searched Devonshire, I should find Madam Ada."

May Everard started up with a cry, for Lady Thetford had fallen back in one of those sudden spasms to which she had lately become subject. In the universal consternation, Guy Legard and his story were forgotten.

"I hope what _I_ said had nothing to do with this," he cried aghast; and the one following so suddenly upon the other made the remark natural enough. But Sir Rupert turned upon him in haughty surprise.

"What you said! My mother, unfortunately, has been subject to these attacks for the past two years, Mr. Legard. That will do, May; let me assist my mother to her room."

May drew back. Lady Thetford was able to rise, pallid and trembling, and, supported by her son's arm, to walk from the room.

"Lady Thetford's health is very delicate, I fear," Mr. Legard murmured, sympathetically. "I really thought for a moment my story-telling had occasioned her sudden illness."

Miss Everard fixed a pair of big, shining eyes in solemn scrutiny on his face--that face so like the pictured one of Sir Noel Thetford.