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20 which had previously struck me. "Where did I come from?"

"I don't know if you are intentionally trifling, but if you are unable to supply the information, I certainly cannot."

Something in my manner seemed to occasion her distress. She moved towards me anxiously, like a timid child who stands in fear of admonition.

"Why do you look like that? Are you angry?"

I knew not what to think or what to feel; but, at least, I was not angry. If she was playing a part, which I for one was disposed to doubt, she acted with such plausibility that I was conscious of my incapacity to discover in what the trick consisted. I perceived that, after all, this was a case for Mrs. Peddar.

"The housekeeper is a most superior person—a Mrs. Peddar. She will be of more assistance to you than I can be. Will you allow me to tell her that you are here?"

"Why not? Of course you can tell her—if you like."

This was said with such an air of innocence, and with such an entire absence of suspicion that there could be anything dubious in her position, that I myself was conscious of a sense of shame at the thoughts which filled my