And here she was. He raised her hand to his lips, and said: "Miss
Carley, you have your enemy at an advantage."

"Miss Carley in Park Lane, Margaret Malbrouck here in my old home," she
replied.

There ran swiftly through the young man's brain the brief story that
Pretty Pierre had told him. This, then, was the child who had been
carried away, and who, years after, had made captive his heart in London
town! Well, one thing was clear, the girl's mother here seemed inclined
to be kinder to him than was the guardian grandmother--if she was the
grandmother--because they had their first talk undisturbed, it may be
encouraged; amiable mothers do such deeds at times.

"And now pray, Mr. Thorne," she continued, "may I ask how came you here
in my father's house after having treated me so cavalierly in London?--
not even sending a P.P.C. when you vanished from your worshippers in
Vanity Fair."

"As for my being here, it is simply a case of blind fate; as for my
friends, the only one I wanted to be sorry for my going was behind
earthworks which I could not scale in order to leave my card, or--or
anything else of more importance; and being left as it were to the
inclemency of a winter world, I fled from--"

She interrupted him. "What! the conqueror, you, flying from your
Moscow?"

He felt rather helpless under her gay raillery; but he said: