"Where?" she cried, amazed.
"You remember the young lady we saw sketching among the ruins yesterday?"
"Yes," she replied.
"It was Miss West—De Vere's inamorata," he answered.
Lady Adela did not speak for a moment. She was surprised into silence. When she recovered her speech, she said, faintly:
"You said she was staying in the neighborhood for the sketching."
"That was a small fib, Lady Adela, for which I humbly crave your pardon. The truth is that Miss West's father, lately dead, has left his daughter to Mrs. West's care. She is staying at Lancaster because she has no other home."
"Ah! Then she is the housekeeper's niece. I presume that is the reason Lady Lancaster called her a servant," said the earl's daughter, in a tone that quite excused the dowager.
He gave her a quick look which, not being an adept in reading expressions, Lady Adela did not understand.
"No, she is not Mrs. West's niece. Her father's brother was Mrs. West's husband. There is all the relationship there is," he said, almost curtly.