"It was all an accident--an accident. I was sick and tired of waiting and writing, and getting never a word in reply. My health went too, last winter, and ever since I have been getting weaker and worse. I knew what that meant: my mother died of a decline--yes, she is dead, thank God! this ten years--and it was then, when I knew I wouldn't get any better, and there was the child to think of, that I wanted to see him once more. There was a gentleman, too, who came----" She broke off for a moment, clasping her thin hands together, which trembled as though the memory of some past, fantastic terror had recurred. "It doesn't matter," she went on presently. "He frightened me, that was all. He had such a stern, smooth-spoken way with him; and he seemed to know so much. He said that he had heard of me and my story, and would befriend me if I would tell him the name of the man who ruined me. Yes, he would befriend me, help me to lead a respectable life." Her sunken eyes flashed for a moment, and her lip was scornfully curled. "God knows!" she cried, with a certain rude dignity, "I was always an honest woman but for Cyril--Dick she called him." The intimate term, tossed so lightly from those lips, caused Rainham to quiver, as though she had rasped raw wounds. It was the concrete touch giving flesh and blood to his vision of her past. It made the girl's old relation with Eve's husband grow into a very present horror, startlingly real and distinct. "Go on," he said at last, wearily. "Ah, I didn't tell him, sir," she explained, misinterpreting his silence. "I wouldn't have done that. He sore angered me, though he may have meant well. He was set on seeing the child then, but I wouldn't let him. It came over me after he was gone that that, maybe, was what he came for--the child. Someone might have put him on to take her from me--some society. Oh, I was at my wits' end, sir! for, you see, she is all I have--all--all! Then I made up my mind to go and see him. Bad as he is, he wouldn't have let them do it. Oh, I would have begged and prayed to him on my knees for that." She stopped for a moment, hectic and panting. She pressed both hands against her breast, as though she sought composure. Then she continued: