"Who is she? What is her name?"
"She is a singer, my dear," said the General, putting his arm affectionately round the girl's shoulders, "and she is an uncommonly pretty girl—I don't deny that. Oh, of course there is nothing for you to be anxious about! Hubert befriended her, I believe; and she was grateful, and wanted to repay him—and—and all that, you know." The General was rather proud of having given this turn to the story.
"But I think that was very kind and good of her," said Enid, with kindling eyes. "Why are you so distressed about it, uncle Richard? I should like to have done the same for poor Hubert too. What is the girl's name?"
"They call her," said the General, looking very much abashed—"they call her Cynthia West. But that isn't her real name."
"Cynthia West?" said Enid, in a low tone. Then she was silent. She was recalling the day when she had questioned Hubert about Cynthia West. He had said that he knew her—a little. And this girl whom he knew "a little" had gone to nurse him in his hour of need! Well, was there anything particularly wrong in that?
The General, having once begun the story, could not keep it to himself.
"It is a most extraordinary thing," he said, "how Hubert came to know her at all. I should have thought that he would steer clear of her—as clear as of poison—when he was engaged to you and all."
"Oh, he would not think of me!" said Enid quietly. "Why should he have avoided Cynthia West?"
"Why?" said the General, bringing his fist down on the table with a bang that made the dishes rattle, and caused Enid to give a nervous start. "Why, because she is not Cynthia West at all! She is the daughter of that ruffian—that murderer—to whom your desolate orphaned condition is due, my darling! She is Westwood's child, the man who killed your dear father and ought to have been hanged for it long ago!"
Enid's hand slipped from her uncle's neck. She knelt on, looking up at him with dazed incredulous eyes and quivering white lips. The communication had given a great shock to her trust in Hubert.