I felt that my position was an embarrassing one.
"You will, I am sure, excuse me," I said, rising from my chair.
To my surprise, the young lady held up her gloved hand to detain me.
"If your friend," she said, "would be good enough to stop, he might be of inestimable service to me."
I relapsed into my chair.
"Briefly," she continued, "the facts are these.
My father was an officer in an Indian regiment, who sent me home when I was quite a child.
My mother was dead, and I had no relative in England.
I was placed, however, in a comfortable boarding establishment at Edinburgh, and there I remained until I was seventeen years of age.
In the year 1878 my father, who was senior captain of his regiment, obtained twelve months' leave and came home.