Where was I?  The furniture was that with which I had been so intimate in the drawing-room of my godmother’s house at Bretton.  Nay, there, on the linen of my bed, were my godmothers initials “L.L.B.”; and there was the portrait that used to hang over the mantelpiece in the breakfast-room in the old house at Bretton.  I audibly pronounced the name—­“Graham!”

“Graham!” echoed a sudden voice at my bedside.  “Do you want Graham?”

She was little changed; something sterner, something more robust, but it was my godmother, Mrs. Bretton.

“How was I found, madam?”

“My son shall tell you by and by,” said she.  “I am told you are an English teacher in a foreign school here.”

Before evening I was downstairs, and seated in a corner, when Graham arrived home, and entered with the question:  “How is your patient, mamma?”

At Mrs. Bretton’s invitation, I came forward to speak for myself where he stood at the hearth, a figure justifying his mother’s pride.

“Much better,” I said calmly; “much better, I thank you Dr. John.”

For this tall young man, this host of mine, was Dr. John, and I had been aware of his identity for some time.

Ere we had sat ten minutes, I caught the eye of Mrs. Bretton fixed steadily on me, and at last she asked, “Tell me, Graham, of whom does this young lady remind you.”

“Dr. John has had so much to do and think of,” said I, seeing how it must end, “that it never occurred to me as possible that he should recognise Lucy Snowe.”

“Lucy Snowe!  I thought so!  I knew it!” cried Mrs. Bretton, as she stepped across the hearth and kissed me.  And I wondered if Mrs. Bretton knew at whose feet her idolised son had laid his homage.

IV.—­A Cure for First Love

The Brettons, who had regained some of their fortune, lived in a chateau outside Villette, a course further warranted by Dr. John’s professional success.  In the months, that followed I heard much of Ginevra.  He thought her so fair, so good, so innocent, and yet, though love is blind, I saw sometimes a subtle ray sped sideways from his eye that half led me to think his professed persuasion of Miss Fanshawe’s naivete was in part assumed.

One morning my godmother decreed that we should go with Graham to a concert that night, at which the most advanced pupils of the conservatoire were to perform.  There, in the suite of the British embassy, was Ginevra Fanshawe, seated by the daughter of an English peer.  I noticed that she looked quite steadily at Dr. John, and then raised a glass to examine his mother, and a minute or two afterwards laughingly whispered to her neighbour.

“Miss Fanshawe is here,” I whispered.  “Have you noticed her?”

“Oh yes,” was the reply; “and I happen to know her companion, who is a proud girl, but not in the least insolent; and I doubt whether Ginevra will have gained ground in her estimation by making a butt of her neighbours.”