“Ah!” replied the girl, protesting, but blushing at the same time, “you’re poking fun at me, Mr. Flockart.  All I can reply is, first, that I’m not good-looking; and, secondly, I’m not in the least dull—­perhaps I should be if I hadn’t my father’s affairs to attend to.”

“They seem to take up a lot of your time,” he said with pretended indifference, but, to his annoyance, landed a salmon parr at the same moment.

“We work together most evenings,” was her reply.

The question which he then put as he threw the parr back into the burn struck her as curious.  It was evident that he was endeavouring to learn from her the nature of her father’s correspondence.  But she was shrewd enough to parry all his ingenious cross-questioning.  Her father’s secrets were her own.

“Some ill-natured people gossip about Sir Henry,” he remarked presently, as he made another long cast up-stream and allowed the flies to be carried down to within a few yards from where he stood.  “They say that his source of income is mysterious, and that it is not altogether open and above-board.”

“What!” she exclaimed, looking at him quickly.  “And who, pray, Mr. Flockart, makes this allegation against my father?”

“Oh, I really don’t know who started the gossip.  The source of such tales is always difficult to discover.  Some enemy, no doubt.  Every man in this world of ours has enemies.”

“What do you mean by the source of dad’s income not being an honourable one?”

The man shrugged his shoulders.  “I really don’t know,” he declared.  “I only repeat what I’ve heard once or twice up in London.”

“Tell me exactly what they say,” demanded the girl, with quick interest.

Her companion hesitated for a few seconds.  “Well, whatever has been said, I’ve always denied; for, as you know, I am a friend of both Lady Heyburn and of your father.”

The girl’s nostrils dilated slightly.  Friend!  Why, was not this man her father’s false friend?  Was he not behind every sinister action of Lady Heyburn’s, and had not she herself, with her own ears, one day at Park Street, four years ago, overheard her ladyship express a dastardly desire in the words, “Oh, Henry is such a dreadful old bore, and so utterly useless, that it’s a shame a woman like myself should be tied up to him.  Fortunately for me, he already has one foot in the grave.  Otherwise I couldn’t tolerate this life at all!” Those cruel words of her stepmother’s, spoken to this man who was at that moment her companion, recurred to her.  She recollected, too, Flockart’s reply.

This hollow pretence of friendship angered her.  She knew that the man was her father’s enemy, and that he had united with the clever, scheming woman in some ingenious conspiracy against the poor, helpless man.

Therefore she turned, and, facing him boldly, said, “I wish, Mr. Flockart, that you would please understand that I have no intention to discuss my father or his affairs.  The latter concern himself alone.  He does not even speak of them to his wife; therefore why should strangers evince any interest in them?”