that."

"Did you know," she asked, "who your lodger really was?"

"Yes," he said, "I guessed! I will be frank with you, Miss Jeanne, if
you will allow me. I do not like your stepmother and I do not like
Major Forrest, but I think that the Duke is going altogether too far
when he suspects them of having anything to do with the disappearance
of his brother."

She drew a little sigh of relief.

"Oh! I am glad to hear you say that," she declared. "It is all so
horrible. I could not sleep last night for thinking about it."

"Lord Ronald will probably turn up in a day or two," Andrew said
gravely. "We will not talk any more about him."

She settled herself a little more comfortably, and smoothed out her
skirts. Then she looked up at him with faintly parted lips.

"What shall we talk about, Mr. Andrew?" she said softly.

"About ourselves," he answered, "or rather about you. It seems to me
that we both stand a little outside the game of life, as your friends
up there understand it."

He waved his large brown hand in the direction of the Hall.

"You are a child, fresh from boarding-school, too young to understand,
too young to know where to look for your friends, or discriminate
against your enemies. I am a rough sort of fellow, also, outside their
lives, from necessity, from every reason which the brain of man could
evolve. Sometimes we outsiders see more than is intended. Is the
Princess of Strurm really your stepmother?"

"Of course she is," Jeanne answered. "She was married to my father when
I was quite a little girl, and she has visited me at the convent where
I was at school, all my life, and when I left last year it was she who
came for me. Why do you ask so strange a question?"

"Because," he said, "I should consider her about the worst possible
guardian that a child like you could have. Tell me, what is it that
goes on all day up at the Hall there--or rather what was it that did go
on before Engleton went away?--eating and drinking, cards, and God
knows what sort of foolishness! Nothing else, nothing worth doing, not
a thing said worth listening to! It's a rotten life for a child like
you. They tell me you're an heiress. Are you?"

She smoothed her crumpled skirts, and looked steadily at the tip of her
brown shoe.

"One of the greatest in Europe," she answered. "No one knows how rich I
am. You see all the money was left to me when I was six years old, and
it is so strictly tied up that no one has had po