in a fainting fit." He then stopped talking and fell asleep.
Telling the story must have relieved him as it did the Ancient
Mariner, for he did not move a muscle or make another sound for the
remainder of the night. Now isn't that an odd story?'

'It is indeed,' Cytherea murmured. 'Very, very strange.'

'Why should she have said your most uncommon name?' continued Owen.
'The man was evidently truthful, for there was not motive sufficient
for his invention of such a tale, and he could not have done it
either.'

Cytherea looked long at her brother. 'Don't you recognize anything
else in connection with the story?' she said.

'What?' he asked.

'Do you remember what poor papa once let drop--that Cytherea was the
name of his first sweetheart in Bloomsbury, who so mysteriously
renounced him? A sort of intuition tells me that this was the same
woman.'

'O no--not likely,' said her brother sceptically.

'How not likely, Owen? There's not another woman of the name in
England. In what year used papa to say the event took place?'

'Eighteen hundred and thirty-five.'

'And when were the Houses of Parliament burnt?--stop, I can tell