"Earle Moray! I am sure I know the name."
"Most English readers do," said Colonel Clifford.
A sudden flash of light seemed to illuminate his mind.
"Earle! Earle! Why that is the name Doris used to murmur in her sleep. She used to dream that Earle was coming—I remember it well. Great Heaven, it is she!"
"What is the matter?" asked Colonel Clifford; "you look as though you had seen a ghost."
"So I have, the ghost of my—— Oh, what nonsense I am talking. So that is the young poet; he is a very handsome man. Lady Studleigh is something like the earl. Is it known who her mother was?"
"No. People say that the earl contracted a low marriage before he went abroad, one that he was ashamed to own, therein consists the romance."
"What romance?" asked Lord Vivianne, hurriedly.
"About Lady Doris. The earl, when he was simply Captain Studleigh, married beneath him, went abroad, leaving his daughter to be brought up by some humble friends of his wife. The romance consists, I suppose, in the sudden change in the young lady's fortune, from comparative obscurity to splendor. It might have been an unfortunate thing for the earl, but that the girl turned out to be beautiful, graceful, intelligent, and well bred."
"I have it, by heavens!" cried Lord Vivianne, in a loud voice.