"You have only my word. You don't know who my father was."
"You just told me he was Charles Jeffreys."
"Yes, but—" He did not finish the sentence. "I thought it was due you to know something of myself and my errand."
"I am glad to know it."
"Thank you. That is very good of you. Do you mind if I ask that you do not repeat what I have been telling you?"
"Not even to Miss Ri?"
Mr. Jeffreys considered the question. "I think Miss Hill should certainly know, for she was my first friend; and Mr. Matthews, too, perhaps. I will tell them and ask them to respect my secret for the present. When I can come among you as one who has a right to claim ancestry with one of your Eastern Shore families, that will be a different thing."
"BUT YOU MUST NOT CALL ME COUSIN," SAID LINDA.
Linda would like to have asked for more of his personal history and, as if reading her thought, he went on: "I have not had a wildly-adventurous life; it has been respectably commonplace. I had a fair education, partly in Europe; but I am not college-bred. My father was a gentleman, but not over-successful in business. He left only a life insurance for my mother, enough for her needs, if used with care. My mother died two years ago, and I have neither brother nor sister."