"Was this child left in your charge?" the lady asked, addressing Mrs. Penn with cold severity.
"There was no one to take him, madam," the crestfallen woman replied. "He was living with Miss Neale, who was a lodger of mine, and she died, quite suddenly, in my house. His father——"
"His father had deserted him." It was Mrs. Beaton who spoke. She had reached the little group, and having but a poor opinion of her friend's eloquence, she took up the tale herself. "But Jamie Waring is well connected, madam; his uncle was our clergyman, the Reverend Harold Waring, curate of St. Lucy's, in Berwick Street, and——"
"Harold Waring! Why, he was a dear old friend of mine!" Mrs. Beaton was interrupted in her turn, and it was the man in flannels who cut her story short. "If I had only known that Waring had left a nephew alone in the world I should have claimed him," he went on, with a ring of determination in his voice. "My name is Wayne—Arnold Wayne—you may have heard Mr. Waring speak of me?"
"Yes, sir, we have," Mrs. Beaton replied. "Here is Miss Kilner, who found your name in poor Miss Neale's manuscript. Miss Neale, sir, was engaged to be married to Mr. Waring."
"He wrote to tell me of his engagement," said Arnold Wayne, looking at Elsie. "What a complicated business this is! It seems that we each have an interest in this young gentleman," he added, with a smile at the fair lady.
"Mr. Wayne!" exclaimed Jamie's protectress, in her silvery voice. "We were to have met at Rushbrook last October, and you didn't come. I was staying with your cousins the Danforths. I am Mrs. Verdon."
"I'm delighted to meet you at last," he said cordially. "Mary and Lily were always talking about you. Isn't all this extraordinary? There never was anything like it in a three-volume novel!"
Then they both laughed with a comfortable air of old acquaintanceship, and Elsie suddenly had a sense of being left out in the cold.