"You seem to be so well prepared to defend him that perhaps you will not be surprised to hear that his name is not Walcott at all, but Bundlecombe, and that his mother kept a small sweet-stuff shop, or something of that kind, at Thorley. Bundlecombe! No wonder he was ashamed of it!"
This shaft took better than either of the others. Lettice was fairly taken aback. The last story did not sound as if it had been invented, and Sydney had evidently been making inquiries. Moreover, there flashed across her mind the remembrance of the book which Alan Walcott had given her—only yesterday morning. How long ago it seemed already! Alan Bundlecombe! What did the name signify, and why should any man care to change the name that he was born with? She recollected Mrs. Bundlecombe very well—the old woman who came and took her first twenty pounds of savings; the widow of the bookseller who had bought part of her father's library. If he was her son, he might not have much to be proud of, but why need he have changed his name?
Decidedly this was a blow to her. She had no defence ready, and Sydney saw that she was uncomfortable.
"Well," he said, "I must not keep you any longer. I suppose, even now"—with a smile—"you will not give me your promise; but you will think over what I have told you, and I dare say it will all come right."
Her eyes were full of wistful yearning as she put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him.
"You believe that I mean to do right, don't you, Sydney?" she asked.
He laughed a little. "We all mean to do right, my dear. But we don't all go the same way to work, I suppose. Yes, yes; I believe you mean well; but do, for heaven's sake, try to act with common-sense. Then, as I said, everything will come right in the end."
He went back to his mother's room, and Lettice stood for some minutes looking out of the window, and sighing for the weariness and disillusion which hung like a cloud upon her life.
"All will come right?" she murmured, re-echoing Sydney's words with another meaning. "No. Trouble and sorrow, and pain may be lived down and forgotten; but without sincerity nothing can come right!"