you.' She searched their little stock of books for a list of dates,
and found one in an old school history.

'The Houses of Parliament were burnt down in the evening of the
sixteenth of October, eighteen hundred and thirty-four.'

'Nearly a year and a quarter before she met father,' remarked Owen.

They were silent. 'If papa had been alive, what a wonderful
absorbing interest this story would have had for him,' said Cytherea
by-and-by. 'And how strangely knowledge comes to us. We might have
searched for a clue to her secret half the world over, and never
found one. If we had really had any motive for trying to discover
more of the sad history than papa told us, we should have gone to
Bloomsbury; but not caring to do so, we go two hundred miles in the
opposite direction, and there find information waiting to be told
us. What could have been the secret, Owen?'

'Heaven knows. But our having heard a little more of her in this
way (if she is the same woman) is a mere coincidence after all--a
family story to tell our friends if we ever have any. But we shall
never know any more of the episode now--trust our fates for that.'

Cytherea sat silently thinking.

'There was no answer this morning to your advertisement, Cytherea?'
he continued.

'None.'