“I really do not know,” answered Richard. “But I hardly think he would enjoy the thought of sir Richard Lestrange over a bookbinder’s shop in Hammersmith or Brentford!”

“Sir Richard! You do not mean—?”

Her face grew white, her eyes fell, her hand trembled on Richard’s arm.

“What is the matter?” he asked, now his turn to be perplexed.

“I don’t understand it!” she answered.

“Is it possible you do not know, Barbara?” he returned. “I thought Mr. Wingfold must have told you! Sir Wilton says I am his son that was lost from his first marriage, to my mother. Indeed, there is no doubt of it!”

“Richard! I didn’t know! Lady Ann told me you were not—!”

“How then should I have dared put my arms around you, Barbara?”

“Richard, I care nothing for what the world thinks! I care only for what God thinks.”

“Then, Barbara, you would have married me, believing me base-born?”

“Oh Richard! you thought it was knowing who you were that made me—! Richard! Richard! I did not think you could have wronged me so! My father sold Miss Brown because I would not marry your brother and be lady Lestrange. If you had not asked me, and I had been sure it was only because of your birth you wouldn’t, I should have found some way of letting you know I cared no more for that than God himself does. The god of the world is the devil. He has many names, but he’s all the same devil, as Mr. Wingfold says.—I wonder why he never told me!—I’m glad he didn’t. If he had, I shouldn’t be here now!”

“I am very glad too, Barbara. But it wouldn’t have made so much difference—I was only here on my way to you! But suppose it had been as you thought, it was one thing what you would do, and another what I would ask you to do!”

“What I would have done was what you should have believed I would do!”

“You must just pardon me, Barbara—well as I thought I knew you, I did not know you enough!”

“You do now?”

‘“I do.”

There came a long silence.

“How long have you known this about yourself, Richard?” said Barbara.

“More than four years.”

“And you never told me?”

“My father wished it kept a secret for a time.”

“Did Mr. Wingfold know?”

“Not until yesterday.”

“Why didn’t he tell me yesterday, then?”

“I think he wouldn’t have told you if he had known all the time.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason that made him leave us together so suddenly—that you might not be hampered by knowing it—that we might understand each other before you knew. I see it all now! It was just like him!”

“He is a friend,” said Barbara.