“Yes, ma’am.”

Sheila’s suspicions were returning forcibly.  “I’ll have to ask questions, Mr. Hilliard, because it seems so strange—­what you are now, and your running away and never having been brought back to the East by—­by whoever it was that sent you to Groton.”

“I want you to ask questions,” he said rather wistfully.  “You have the right.”

This forced her into something of a dilemma.  She ignored it and waited, looking away from him.  He would not leave her this loophole, however.

“Why don’t you look at me?” he demanded crossly.

She did, and smiled again.

“You have the prettiest smile I ever saw!” he cried; then went on quickly, “I ran away because of something that happened.  I’ll tell you.  My mother”—­he flushed and his eyes fell—­“came up to see me at school one day.  My mother was very beautiful....  I was mad about her.”  Curiously enough, every trace of the Western cowboy had gone out of his voice and manner, which were an echo of the voice and manner of the Groton schoolboy whose experience he told.  “I was proud of her—­you know how a kid is.  I kind of paraded her round and showed her off to the other fellows.  No other fellow had such a beautiful mother.  Then, as we were saying good-bye, a crowd of the boys all round, I did something—­trod on her foot or something, I don’t quite know what—­and she lifted up her hand and slapped me across the face.”  He was white at the shocking memory.  “Right there before them all, when I—­I was adoring her.  She had the temper of a devil, a sudden Spanish temper—­the kind I have, too—­and she never made the slightest effort to hold it down.  She hit me and she laughed as though it was funny and she got into her carriage.  I cut off to my room.  I wanted to kill myself.  I couldn’t face any one.  I wanted never to see her again.  I guess I was a queer sort of kid....  I don’t know ...”  He drew a big breath, dropped back to the present and his vivid color returned.  “That’s why I ran away from school, Miss Arundel.”

“And they never brought you back?”

He laughed.  “They never found me.  I had quite a lot of money and I lost myself pretty cleverly...a boy of fourteen can, you know.  It’s a very common history.  Well, I suppose they didn’t break their necks over me either, after the first panic.  They were busy people—­my parents—­remarkably busy going to the devil....  And they were eternally hard-up.  You see, my grandfather had the money—­still has it—­and he’s remarkably tight.  I wrote to them after six years, when I was twenty.  They wrote back; at least their lawyer did.  They tried, not very sincerely, though, I think, to coax me East again... told me they’d double my allowance if I did—­they’ve sent me a pittance—­” He shuddered suddenly, a violent, primitive shiver.  “I’m glad I didn’t go,” he said.