"Why, of course you may, if you call it a liberty, which I don't, you know!" answered Victor, with a smile.
"Then, my dear Hartman, how about Miss Electra? I was not so absorbed in my own interests as not to have an eye to yours."
"Ah, Miss Electra! Well, parson, she _was_ my little old acquaintance of Rat Alley, when I flourished in that fragrant neighborhood as Galley Vick."
"No!" exclaimed Mr. Lyle, opening his eyes wide with astonishment.
"Yes," quietly answered Victor Hartman. "And it is a wonder that you, who know the family so well, do not know this episode in its history."
"How was I to know, my friend, when no one ever told me? I suppose that few or none but the family know anything about it."
"I suppose you are right," said Victor. "Well, you see, she recognized me, as surely as I did her, at first sight. We had an explanation as we walked out to the University that day."
"But how came the granddaughter of Dr. Beresford Jones ever to have had such a miserable childhood?"
"Well, you see, there was a disobedient daughter, a runaway marriage, a profligate husband, and the consequences--poverty, destitution, early death, and an orphan child left among beggars and thieves! Her grandfather found her at last and took her under his guardianship. That is the whole story in brief."
"Well, well, well!" mused Mr. Lyle, with his head on his breast; then, raising it, he went back to the previous question: "But what about Miss Electra?"
"I have just told you about her," replied Victor.
"Oh, yes, I know! You have told me something about her, but you haven't told me all. Take me into your confidence, Victor."
"What do you mean?" inquired Hartman, in some embarrassment.
"Why, that you and your little old acquaintance seem to be very fond of each other."
Victor laughed in an embarrassed manner, and then said: "Do you know that when we were in Rat Alley, and she was a tiny child and I was a lad, there was a promise of marriage between us?"
"That was funny too! Well, what about it?"
"Nothing. Only, if I dared, I would, some day, remind her of it."
"Do, Victor! Believe me, she will not affect to have forgotten it," said Mr. Lyle, earnestly.
"Ah, but when I think of all I have passed through I dare not ask a beautiful and happy girl to unite her bright life with my blackened one! I dare not," said Hartman, very sadly.