await an opportune moment.

'Well, mother, what is it?' he said presently, with his wonted look of
kindness. By living so long together and in such close intercourse the
two had grown skilled in the reading of each other's faces.

'My dear,' she replied, with something of solemnity, 'I was perfectly
right. Miss Denny _was_ those girls' mother.'

'Nonsense!'

'But there's no doubt about it. I've asked Thyrza. She knows that was
her mother's name, and she knows that her mother was a teacher.'

'In that case I've nothing more to say. You're a wonderful old lady, as
I've often told you.'

'I have a good memory, Gilbert. You can't think how pleased I am that I
found out that. I feel more interest in them than ever. And the child
seemed so pleased too! She could scarcely believe that I'd known her
mother before she was born. She wants me to tell her and her sister all
I can remember. Now, isn't it nice?'

Gilbert smiled, but made no further remark. The evening silence set in.

CHAPTER VII

THE WORK IN PROGRESS

On the sheltered side of Eastbourne, just at the springing of the downs
as you climb towards Beachy Head, is a spacious and heavy-looking stone
house, with pillared porch, oriel windows on the ground floor of the
front, and a square turret rising above the fine row of chestnuts which
flanks the road. It was built some forty years ago, its only neighbours
then being a few rustic cottages; recently there has sprung up a suburb
of comely red-brick houses, linking it with the visitors' quarter of
Eastbourne. The builder and first proprietor, a gentleman whose dignity
derived from Mark Lane, called the house Odessa Lodge; at his death it
passed by purchase into the hands of people to whom this name seemed
something worse than inappropriate, and the abode was henceforth known
as The Chestnuts.

One morning early in November, three months after the date of that
letter which he addressed to Gilbert Grail and other working men of
Lambeth, our friend Egremont arrived from town at Eastbourne station
and was conveyed thence by fly to the house of which I speak. He
inquired for Mrs. Ormonde. That lady was not within, but would shortly
return from her morning drive. Egremont followed the servant to the
library and prepared to wait.

The room was handsomely furnished and more than passably supplied with
books, which inspection showed to be not only such as one expects to
find in the library of a country house,