They were in a quiet part of the Gardens, and her father suddenly laid an iron grip upon her wrist.
"Look at me," he burst out—"tell me the truth! You—you ain't—you ain't bound to him in any way?" He dare not, after all, put his sudden suspicion into plainer words. "It's all fair and square? He's asked you to be his wife, and not——"
Cynthia wrenched away her arm.
"I did not think that my own father would insult me!" she said, in a voice which, though low, vibrated with anger. "I am quite well able to take care of my own honor and dignity; and Mr. Lepel would never dream of assailing either."
Then she broke down a little, and a few tears made their way over the scarlet of her cheeks; but of these signs of distress her father took no notice. He stood still in the middle of the path down which they had been walking, and repeated the name incredulously.
"'Lepel'! 'Lepel'! Is that your sweetheart's name?"
"'Hubert Lepel.' It is a well-known name," said Cynthia, with head erect.
"Hubert Lepel! Not the man at Beechfield, the cousin of those Vanes?" He spoke in a whisper, with his eyes fixed on his daughter's face.
Cynthia turned very pale.
"I do not know. Oh, it can't be the same," she said.