And you, fair lady (for, dark though it is, I know you are fair), are you Colonel Myddelton's daughter, the mistress Barbara, of whom he has told me ?" "I am Colonel Myddelton's daughter," said Barbara.

"But you, sir ?" "Right, right," the stranger replied, more gaily; "you ply me hard, but my name stays secret, none the less.

Yet this ring may perhaps convince you I am no common housebreaker.

See, it was the gift of your father, and a passport, so he said, to Myddelton Hall by day or night." And he stretched forth a ring, which Barbara immediately recognized as an old signet of her father's which suddenly he had ceased to wear, he said not why.

She was partially satisfied.