“He has never told you the conditions of his father’s will?”
“Never—except that he has been left very poorly off, though his father died in affluent circumstances. What are the conditions?”
The mysterious stranger paused for a moment.
“Have you, of late, formed an acquaintance of a certain Mrs. Bond, a widow?”
“I met her recently in South Kensington, at the house of a friend of my mother, Mrs. Binyon. Why?”
“How many times have you met her?”
“Two—or I think three. She came to tea with us the day before we came up here.”
“H’m! Your mother seems rather prone to make easy acquaintanceships—eh? The Hardcastles were distinctly undesirable, were they not?—and the Jameses also?”
“Why, what do you know about them?” asked the girl, much surprised, as they were two families who had been discovered to be not what they represented.
“Well,” he laughed. “I happen to be aware of your mother’s charm—that’s all.”