Page:Fletcher - The Mortover Grange Affair.pdf/62

 for lunch; sometimes for tea. I used to wait on him. And after I'd been there a little time—I've only been there three or four months—he once asked me my name.

"Yes?" said Wedgwood. "And what is your name?"

"My name," replied the young woman, "is Avice Mortover."

Wedgwood woke up to sudden and intense mental activity. Here, at any rate, was something worth listening to! Was it going to turn out that after several days' ineffectual groping in the dark he was now to find the thread of a clue in his hands? But he repressed his eagerness and tried to speak calmly.

"Unusual name, that!" he remarked. "Mortover, eh? Uncommon!"

The girl nodded assent.

"So Mr. Wraypoole said," she replied. "Very uncommon, he told me. But he said that he'd once known people of that name, himself."

"Did he say where?"

"No. He only said—what I've just told you. Then he asked me who my people, my family, were. I didn't know much about them."

"What did you know?" asked Wedgwood. "And—did you tell him what you knew?"

"I told him—yes. It wasn't much at all.