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“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:

“Well, I didn’t burn my kremlin behind me.”

“Your kremlin?”

“My ships, then: they–they are just the same,” he earnestly pleaded. Foolish youth, to attempt to take such a heart by surprise and storm!

“That is very interesting,” she said, “but hardly wise. To make fortunes and be happy in new countries, one should forget the old ones. Meditation is the enemy of action.”

“There’s one meditation could make me conquer the North Pole, if I could but grasp it definitely.”

“Grasp the North Pole? That would be awkward for your friends and gratifying to your enemies, if one may believe science and history. But, perhaps, you are in earnest after all, poor fellow! for my father tells me you are going over the hills and far away to the moose-yards. How valiant you are, and how quickly you grasp the essentials of fortune-making!”

“Miss Malbrouck, I am in earnest, and I’ve always been in earnest in one thing at least. I came out here to make money, and I’ve made some, and shall make more; but just now the moose are as brands for the burning, and I have a gun sulky for want of exercise.”

“What an eloquent warrior-temper! And to whom are your deeds of valour to be dedicated? Before whom do you intend to lay your trophies of the chase?”

“Before the most provoking but worshipful lady that I know.”

“Who is the sylvan maid? What princess of the glade has now the homage of your impressionable heart, Mr. Thorne?”

And Gregory Thorne, his native insolence standing him in no stead, said very humbly:

“You are that sylvan maid, that princess–ah, is this fair to me, is it fair, I ask you?”

“You really mean that about the trophies”? she replied. “And shall you return like the mighty khans, with captive tigers and lions, led by stalwart slaves, in your train, or shall they be captive moose or grizzlies?”

“Grizzlies are not possible here,” he said, with cheerful seriousness, “but the moose is possible, and more, if you would be kinder–Margaret.”

“Your supper, see, is ready,” she said. “I venture to hope your appetite has not suffered because of long absence from your friends.”

He could only dumbly answer by a protesting motion of the hand, and his smile was not remarkably buoyant.

The next morning they started on their moose-hunt. Gregory Thorne was cast down when he crossed the threshold into the winter morning without hand-clasp or god-speed from Margaret Malbrouck; but Mrs. Malbrouck was there, and Gregory, looking into her eyes, thought how good a thing it would be for him, if some such face looked benignly out on him every morning, before he ventured forth into the deceitful day. But what was the use of wishing! Margaret evidently did not care. And though the air was clear and the sun shone brightly, he felt there was a cheerless wind blowing on him; a wind that chilled him; and he hummed to himself bitterly a song of the voyageurs: