"Ffolliot?" he repeated, slowly--"Ffolliot? How do you spell it?"
"Anyhow, so long as you remember the two F's!" I answered, suavely. "Generally, double F, O, double L, I, O, T. Rather a pretty name, we think, although I am afraid that you don't seem to like it. Oh! here's my father coming. Won't you stay, and make his acquaintance?"
My father, returning from the church, with his surplice under his arm, had been attracted by the sight of a strange man talking to me on the lawn, and was coming slowly over towards us. Mr. Deville turned round rather abruptly. The two men met face to face, my father dignified, correct, severe, Bruce Deville untidy, ill-clad, with sullen, darkened face, lit by the fire which flashed from his eyes. Yet there was a certain dignity about his bearing, and he met my father's eyes resolutely. The onus of speech seemed to rest with him, and he accepted it.
"I need no introduction to Mr. Ffolliot," he said, sternly. "I am afraid that I can offer you no welcome to Northshire. This is a surprise."
My father looked him up and down with stony severity.
"So far as I am concerned, sir," he said, "I desire no welcome from you. Had I known that you were to be amongst my near neighbors, I should not have taken up my abode here for however short a time."
"The sentiment," remarked Mr. Deville, "is altogether mutual. At any rate, we can see as little of each other as possible. I wish you a good morning."
He raised his cap presumably to me, although he did not glance in my direction, and went off across the lawn, taking huge strides, and crossing our flower beds with reckless unconcern. My father watched him go with a dark shadow resting upon his face. He laid his fingers upon my arm, and their touch through my thin gown was like the touch of fire. I looked into his still, calm face, and I wondered. It was marvellous that a man should wear such a mask.
"You have known him?" I murmured. "Where? Who is he?"
My father drew a long, inward breath through his clenched teeth.
"That man," he said, slowly, with his eyes still fixed upon the now distant figure, "was closely, very closely, associated with the most unhappy chapter of my life. It was all over and done with before you were old enough to understand. It is many, many years ago, but I felt in his presence as though it were but yesterday. It is many years ago--but it hurts still--like a knife it hurts."