She halted, seemingly at a loss. Enid, striving helplessly to solve the reason for this unexpected confidence, but quite wishful to make the explanation easier, found herself interested.
"Yes," she said. "That is quite possible, of course, though you must have been quite a girl. Mrs. Brand died many years ago."
Mrs. Vansittart flinched from the feeble rays of the lantern.
"That is so—I think I heard of—of Mrs. Brand's death—in London, I fancy. But—they had only one child."
Enid laughed.
"I am a mere nobody," she said. "Dad adopted me. I came here one day in June, nineteen years ago, and I must have looked so forlorn that he took me to his heart—thank God!"
Another solemn chord of the hymn floated up to them:
"Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear."
The rest of the verse evaded them. Probably a door was closed.
Mrs. Vansittart seemed to be greatly perturbed. Enid, intent on the occupation of the moment, believed their little chat was ended. To round it off, so to speak, she went on quickly: