ver your
identity, Miss Farmond?"

"To discover it, not recover it," she corrected.

"Don't you really know that I am honestly quite ignorant?"

Mr. Rattar shook his head cautiously.

"It is not for me to hazard an opinion," he answered.

"Oh please, Mr. Rattar," she exclaimed, "don't be so dreadfully
cautious! Surely you can't have thought that I knew all the time!"

Again he was silent for a moment, and then enquired:

"Why do you come to me now?"

"Because I _must_ know! Because--well, because it is so unsatisfactory
not knowing--for various reasons."

"And why are you so positive that I can tell you?"

"Because all my affairs and arrangements went through your hands, and of
course you know!"

Again he seemed to reflect for a moment.

"May I ask, Miss Farmond," he enquired, "why, in that case, you think I
shouldn't have told you before, and why--also in that case--I should
tell you now?"

This enquiry seemed to disconcert Miss Farmond a little.

"Oh, of course I presume Sir Reginald and you had some reasons," she
admitted.

"And don't you think then we have them still?"

"I can't honestly see why you should make such a mystery of
it--especially as I can guess the truth perfectly easily!"

"If you can guess it----" he began.

"Oh please don't answer me like that! Why won't you tell me?"

He seemed to consider the point for a moment, and then he said:

"I am not at all sure that I am at liberty to tell you, Miss Farmond,
without further consultation."

"Has Sir Reginald really any good reasons for not telling me?"

"Have you asked him that question?"

"No," she confessed. "He and Lady Cromarty have been so frightfully
kind, and yet so--so reserved on that subject, that I have never liked
to ask them direct. But they know that I have guessed, and they haven't
done anything to prevent me finding out more for myself, which means
that they really are quite willing to let me find out if I can."

He shook his head.

"I am afraid I shall require more authority than that."

She pursed her lips and looked at the floor in silence, and then she
rose.

"Well, if you absolutely refuse to tell me _anything_, Mr. Rattar, I
suppose----"

A dejected little shrug completed her sentence, and as she turned
towards the door her eloquent eyes looked at him for a moment beneath
their long lashes with an expression in them that might have moved a
statue. Although Simon Rattar had the reputation of being im