“Norman Druce,” he said.

She repeated it.

“How do you spell it?”

He took a card from a pocket-book and handed it to her. She had never seen a card before, and she turned it over in her gauntleted hand and looked at it curiously, and read:

“Lord Norman Druce, The Manor, Oakfield.”

“What is yours?” he asked.

“Esmeralda,” she said.

And “Esmeralda,” he repeated softly, and under his breath, as if it were a chord of music.


[CHAPTER III.]