rea came forward with it. Miss Aldclyffe did not turn her head, but
looked inquiringly at her maid in the glass.

'You saw what I wear on my neck, I suppose?' she said to Cytherea's
reflected face.

'Yes, madam, I did,' said Cytherea to Miss Aldclyffe's reflected face.

Miss Aldclyffe again looked at Cytherea's reflection as if she were
on the point of explaining. Again she checked her resolve, and said
lightly--

'Few of my maids discover that I wear it always. I generally keep it
a secret--not that it matters much. But I was careless with you, and
seemed to want to tell you. You win me to make confidences that....'

She ceased, took Cytherea's hand in her own, lifted the locket with the
other, touched the spring and disclosed a miniature.

'It is a handsome face, is it not?' she whispered mournfully, and even
timidly.

'It is.'

But the sight had gone through Cytherea like an electric shock, and
there was an instantaneous awakening of perception in her, so thrilling
in its presence as to be well-nigh insupportable. The face in the
miniature was the face of her own father--younger and fresher than she
had ever known him--but her father!

Was this the woman of his wild and unquenchable early love? And was this
the woman who had figured in the gate-man's story as answering the name
of Cytherea before her judgment was awake? Surely it was. And if so,
here was the tangible outcrop of a romantic and hidden stratum of the
past hitherto seen only in her imagination; but as far as her scope
allowed, clearly defined therein by reason of its strangeness.

Miss Aldclyffe's eyes and thoughts were so intent upon the miniature
that she had not been conscious of Cytherea's start of surprise. She
went on speaking in a low and abstracted tone.

'Yes, I lost him.' She interrupted her words by a short meditation, and
went on again. 'I lost him by excess of honesty as regarded my past. But
it was best that it should be so.... I was led to think rather more
than usual of the circumstances to-night because of your name. It is
pronounced the same way, though differently spelt.'

The only means by which Cytherea's surname could have been spelt to
Miss Aldclyffe must have been by Mrs. Morris or Farmer Springrove. She
fancied Farmer Springrove would have spelt it properly if Edward was his
informant, which made Miss Aldclyffe's remark obscure.

Women make confidences and then regret them. The impulsive rush of
feeling which had