I smiled, and felt touched.

“Oh, how good of you!” I cried.  “But I really couldn’t think of it.  Thank you ever so much, though, for your kind thought, all the same.  It’s so good and sweet of you.  But you don’t even know who I am.  I have no introduction.”

“You’re your own best introduction,” Elsie said, with a pretty nod:  I thought of her somehow from the very first moment I heard her name as Elsie.  “And as to your not knowing us, never mind about that.  We know you at first sight.  It’s the Canadian way to entertain Angels unawares.  Out here, you know, hospitality’s the rule of the country.”

Well, I demurred for a long time; I fought off their invitation as well as I could:  I couldn’t bear thus to quarter myself upon utter strangers.  But they both were so pressing, and brought up so many cogent arguments why I couldn’t go alone to the one village saloon—­a mere whisky-drinking public-house, they said, of very bad character,—­that in the long run I was fain almost to acquiesce in their kind plan for my temporary housing.  Besides, after my horrid experience at Quebec, it was such a positive relief to me to meet anybody nice and delicate, that I couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse these dear people.  And then, perhaps it was best not to go quite on to Palmyra at once, for fear of unexpectedly running against my father’s murderer.  If I met him in the street, and he recognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do?  My head was all in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect:  for I felt sure he expected me.  I made one last despairing effort.

“If I stop at your house, though,” I said, half ashamed of myself for venturing to make conditions, “there’s one promise you must make me—­that I sha’n’t see Dr. Ivor unless you let me know and get my consent beforehand.”

Jack, as I called him to myself, answered gaily back with a rather curious smile: 

“If you like, you need see nobody but our own two selves.  We’ll promise not to introduce anybody to you without due leave, and to let you do as you like in that and in everything.”

So I yielded at last.

“Well, I must know your name,” I said tentatively.

And Jack, looking queerly at me with an inquiring air, said: 

“My sister’s name’s Elsie; mine’s John Cheriton.”

“And yours?” Elsie asked, glancing timidly down at me.

My heart beat hard.  I was face to face with a dilemma.  These were friends of Courtenay Ivor’s, and I had given myself away to them.  I was going to their house, to accept their hospitality—­and to betray their friend!  Never in my life did I feel so guilty before.  Oh! what on earth was I to do?  I had told them too much; I had gone to work foolishly.  If I said my real name, I should let out my whole secret.  I must brazen it out now.  With tremulous lips and flushed cheek, I answered quickly, “Julia Marsden.”