It was the same Van Rheyn that they had thought—the son of Miss Emma Aberleigh. She had been dead two years.
“Are you a Protestant or a Roman Catholic?” questioned Dr. Frost.
“I am Protestant, sir: the same that my mother was. We attended the église of Monsieur le Pasteur Mons, of the Culte Evangélique.”
The doctor asked him if he would take anything before dinner, and he chose a glass of eau sucrée. The mal-de-mer had been rather bad, he said, and he had not been able to eat since.
Evidently Hall did not approve of eau sucrée. She had never made eau sucary, she said, when sent to for it. Bringing in the water and sugar, she stood by to watch Van Rheyn mix it, her face sour, her lips drawn in. I am sure it gave her pleasure, when he asked for a few drops of orange-flower water, to be able to say there was not such a thing in the house.
“This young gentleman is the son of the Miss Emma Aberleigh you once knew, Hall,” spoke the doctor, with a view no doubt to putting her on good terms with the new pupil.
“Yes, sir,” she answered crustily. “He favours his mamma about the eyes.”
“She must have had very nice eyes,” I put in.
“And so she had,” said Van Rheyn, looking at me gratefully. “Thank you for saying so. I wish you could have known her!”
“And might I ask, sir, what has become of the other Miss Aberleigh?” asked Hall of Van Rheyn. “The young lady who went off to Injee with her husband on the wedding-day.”