We are not great walkers."

They went as far as the door together. Johnstone bowed and walked off,
and Clare went back to her mother.

"He caught me," she said, in a tone of annoyance. "You were quite right.
Then he showed me his name himself, on the board. It's Johnstone--Mr.
Brook Johnstone, with an E--he says that he is Scotch. Why--mother!
Johnstone! How odd! That was the name of--"

She stopped short and looked at her mother, who had grown unnaturally
pale during the last few seconds.

"Yes, dear. That was the name of my first husband."

Mrs. Bowring spoke in a low voice, looking down at her work. But her
hands trembled violently, and she was clearly making a great effort to
control herself. Clare watched her anxiously, not at all understanding.

"Mother dear, what is it?" she asked. "The name is only a
coincidence--it's not such an uncommon name, after all--and besides--"

"Oh, of course," said Mrs. Bowring, in a dull tone. "It's a mere
coincidence--probably no relation. I'm nervous, to-day."

Her manner seemed unaccountable to her daughter, except on the
supposition that she was ill. She very rarely spoke of her first
husband, by whom she had no children. When she did, she mentioned his
name gravely, as one speaks of dead persons who have been dear, but that
was all. She had never shown anything like emotion in connection with
the subject, and the young girl avoided it instinctively, as most
children, of whose parents the one has been twice married, avoid the
mention of the first husband or wife, who was not their father or
mother.

"I wish I understood you!" exclaimed Clare.

"There's nothing to understand, dear," said Mrs. Bowring, still very
pale. "I'm nervous--that's all."

Before long she left Clare by herself and went indoors, and locked
herself into her room. The rooms in the old hotel were once the cells of
the monks, small vaulted chambers in which there is barely space for the
most necessary furniture. During nearly an hour Mrs. Bowring paced up
and down, a beat of fourteen feet between the low window and the locked
door. At last she stopped before the little glass, and looked at
herself, and smoothed her streaked hair.

"Nineteen and six--are twenty-five," she said slowly in a low voice, and
her eyes stared into their own reflection rather wildly.

CHAPTER V

Brook Johnstone's people did not come on the next day, nor on the day
after that, but he expressed no surprise at the d