ser when you do know. My name is Alban Morris."

Francine corrected herself. "I mean, I don't know what you teach."

Alban Morris pointed to the fragments of his sketch from Nature. "I am a
bad artist," he said. "Some bad artists become Royal Academicians. Some
take to drink. Some get a pension. And some--I am one of them--find
refuge in schools. Drawing is an 'Extra' at this school. Will you take
my advice? Spare your good father's pocket; say you don't want to learn
to draw."

He was so gravely in earnest that Francine burst out laughing. "You are
a strange man," she said.

"Wrong again, miss. I am only an unhappy man."

The furrows in his face deepened, the latent humor died out of his eyes.
He turned to the summer-house window, and took up a pipe and tobacco
pouch, left on the ledge.

"I lost my only friend last year," he said. "Since the death of my dog,
my pipe is the one companion I have left. Naturally I am not allowed to
enjoy the honest fellow's society in the presence of ladies. They have
their own taste in perfumes. Their clothes and their letters reek with
the foetid secretion of the musk deer. The clean vegetable smell of
tobacco is unendurable to them. Allow me to retire--and let me thank you
for the trouble you took to save my drawing."

The tone of indifference in which he expressed his gratitude piqued
Francine. She resented it by drawing her own conclusion from what he
had said of the ladies and the musk deer. "I was wrong in admiring your
drawing," she remarked; "and wrong again in thinking you a strange man.
Am I wrong, for the third time, in believing that you dislike women?"

"I am sorry to say you are right," Alban Morris answered gravely.

"Is there not even one exception?"

The instant the words passed her lips, she saw that there was some
secretly sensitive feeling in him which she had hurt. His black brows
gathered into a frown, his piercing eyes looked at her with angry
surprise. It was over in a moment. He raised his shabby hat, and made
her a bow.

"There is a sore place still left in me," he said; "and you have
innocently hit it. Good-morning."

Before she could speak again, he had turned the corner of the
summer-house, and was lost to view in a shrubbery on the westward side
of the grounds.

CHAPTER V. DISCOVERIES IN THE GARDEN.

Left by herself, Miss de Sor turned back again by way of the trees.

So far, her interview with the drawing-master had helped to pass th