“I am not a friend of Mrs. Glenarm.  I am a total stranger to her.”

This made the ceremonious request preferred by the lady a little more intelligible—­but it left the lady’s object in wishing to speak to Mrs. Glenarm still in the dark.  Julius politely waited, until it pleased her to proceed further, and explain herself The explanation did not appear to be an easy one to give.  Her eyes dropped to the ground.  She hesitated painfully.

“My name—­if I mention it,” she resumed, without looking up, “may possibly inform you—­” She paused.  Her color came and went.  She hesitated again; struggled with her agitation, and controlled it.  “I am Anne Silvester,” she said, suddenly raising her pale face, and suddenly steadying her trembling voice.

Julius started, and looked at her in silent surprise.

The name was doubly known to him.  Not long since, he had heard it from his father’s lips, at his father’s bedside.  Lord Holchester had charged him, had earnestly charged him, to bear that name in mind, and to help the woman who bore it, if the woman ever applied to him in time to come.  Again, he had heard the name, more lately, associated scandalously with the name of his brother.  On the receipt of the first of the anonymous letters sent to her, Mrs. Glenarm had not only summoned Geoffrey himself to refute the aspersion cast upon him, but had forwarded a private copy of the letter to his relatives at Swanhaven.  Geoffrey’s defense had not entirely satisfied Julius that his brother was free from blame.  As he now looked at Anne Silvester, the doubt returned upon him strengthened—­almost confirmed.  Was this woman—­so modest, so gentle, so simply and unaffectedly refined—­the shameless adventuress denounced by Geoffrey, as claiming him on the strength of a foolish flirtation; knowing herself, at the time, to be privately married to another man?  Was this woman—­with the voice of a lady, the look of a lady, the manner of a lady—­in league (as Geoffrey had declared) with the illiterate vagabond who was attempting to extort money anonymously from Mrs. Glenarm?  Impossible!  Making every allowance for the proverbial deceitfulness of appearances, impossible!

“Your name has been mentioned to me,” said Julius, answering her after a momentary pause.  His instincts, as a gentleman, made him shrink from referring to the association of her name with the name of his brother.  “My father mentioned you,” he added, considerately explaining his knowledge of her in that way, “when I last saw him in London.”

“Your father!” She came a step nearer, with a look of distrust as well as a look of astonishment in her face.  “Your father is Lord Holchester—­is he not?”

“Yes.”

“What made him speak of me?”

“He was ill at the time,” Julius answered.  “And he had been thinking of events in his past life with which I am entirely unacquainted.  He said he had known your father and mother.  He desired me, if you were ever in want of any assistance, to place my services at your disposal.  When he expressed that wish, he spoke very earnestly—­he gave me the impression that there was a feeling of regret associated with the recollections on which he had been dwelling.”