CHAPTER II.
A FAMILY DISCUSSION The marriage of Sylvanus Stone, Professor of the Natural Sciences, to Anne, daughter of Mr.Justice Carfax, of the well-known county family--the Carfaxes of Spring Deans, Hants--was recorded in the sixties.

The baptisms of Martin, Cecilia, and Bianca, son and daughters of Sylvanus and Anne Stone, were to be discovered registered in Kensington in the three consecutive years following, as though some single-minded person had been connected with their births.

After this the baptisms of no more offspring were to be found anywhere, as if that single mind had encountered opposition.

But in the eighties there was noted in the register of the same church the burial of "Anne, nee Carfax, wife of Sylvanus Stone." In that "nee Carfax" there was, to those who knew, something more than met the eye.

It summed up the mother of Cecilia and Bianca, and, in more subtle fashion, Cecilia and Bianca, too.