u, that she lets me call her her name Ruth.
That was my child's I left at our Dolly's age, who was drowned.'

"Now are you sure, mamma," said Gwen, not without severity, "that you
quite understand that it's _the same Ruth_? That this Widow Thrale _is_
the little girl that old Mrs. Prichard has gone on believing drowned,
all these years? Are you quite clear that old Granny Marrable actually
_is_ the twin sister she has not seen for fifty years? Are you
certain...?"

"My dear Gwen, I beg you won't harangue. Besides, I can't hear you
because the train's going quick again. It always does, just here....
No--I understand perfectly. These two old persons have not seen each
other for fifty years, and it's very interesting. Only I don't see what
they have to complain of. They have only got to be told, and made to
understand how the mistake came about. I think they _ought_ to be told,
you know."

"Oh dear, what funny things maternal parents are! Mamma dear, you are
just like Thothmes, who said:--'Better late than never'!"

"Who is 'Thothmes'?" Her ladyship knew perfectly well.

"Well--Lincoln's Inn Fields--if you prefer it! Mr. Hawtrey. He's like a
cork that won't come out. I cannot understand people like you and Mr.
Hawtrey. I suppose you will say that you and he are not in it, and I
am?"

"I shall say _nothing_, my dear. I never do." The Countess retired to
the Zenith, meekly. The train was picking up its spirits, audibly, but
cautiously. The flank fire of hints about speed had subsided, and it had
all the world before it, subject to keeping on the line and screeching
when called on to do so by the Company.

"I wonder," said Gwen, "whether you have realised that that dear old
soul is calling her own daughter Ruth 'Ruth,' without knowing who she
is."

"Oh dear yes--perfectly! But suppose she is--what does it matter?" The
conversation was cut short by the more than hysterical violence of the
up-express, which was probably the thing that passed, invisible owing to
its speed, before its victims could do more than quail and shiver. When
it had shrieked and rattled itself out of hearing, it was evident that
it had bitten Gwen's engine and poisoned its disposition, for madness
set in, and it dragged her train over oily lines and clicketty lines
alike at a speed that made conversation impossible.

Gwen was panting to start upon the bewildering task she had before her,
but only to put it to the proof, and end the tension