“Luttrell—Luttrell! You mean one of that family who lived on the rock off the Irish coast?”
“His son.”
“The boy I remember having rescued at the peril of my own life! I wonder will his memory recal it? And why is Sir Gervais——”
He stopped; he was about to ask what interest could attach to any one so devoid of fortune, friends, or station, and she saw the meaning of his question, and said, though not without a certain confusion:
“My brother-in-law and this young man’s father were once on a time very intimate; he used to be a great deal with us—I am speaking of very long ago—and then we lost sight of him. A remote residence and an imprudent marriage estranged him from us, and the merest accident led my brother to where he lived—the barren island you spoke of—and renewed in some sort their old friendship—in so far, at least, that Gervais promised to be the guardian of his friend’s son——”
“I remember it all; I took a part in the arrangement.”
“But it turns out there is nothing to take charge of. In a letter that my brother got from Mr. Grenfell some time since, we find that Mr. Luttrell has left everything he possessed to a certain niece or daughter. Which was she, Mr. M’Kinlay?”
“Niece, I always understood.”
“Which did you always believe?” said she, looking at him with a steady, unflinching stare.
“Niece, certainly.”