"I can't, my dear--I can't. It's true every word of it. My lady knows." "Of course I know. Come, Mary, don't be foolish," said Lady Caroline, in the carelessly sharp tone in which one sometimes speaks to an erring dependant. "I took an interest in you at the time, you will remember, although I was only a child staying at Helmsley Court at the time with Mr. Adair's family. I was fourteen, I think; and you were scullery-maid or something, and told me about your sweetheart, John Wyvis. There is nothing to be ashamed of: you were married very suitably, and if Wyvis, the ploughman, had not been run over when he was intoxicated, and killed before your baby's birth, you might even now have been living down at Wych End, with half a dozen stalwart sons and daughters--of whom you, Mr. Wyvis, or Mr. Wyvis Brand, as you are generally known, would have been the eldest--probably by this time a potman or a pugilist, with a share in your grandfather's public-house at Roxby. How ridiculous it seems now, does it not?" Astonishment had kept Wyvis silent, but his gathering passion could not longer be repressed. "That is enough," he said. "If you desire to insult me you might have let it be in other company. Or if you will send your husband to repeat it----" "I said a pugilist, did I not?" said Lady Caroline, smiling, and putting up her eye-glass. "Your thews and sinews justify me perfectly--and so, I must say, does your manner of speech." She let her eye run over his limbs critically, and then she dropped her glass. "You are really wonderfully like poor Wyvis; he was a very strong sort of man." "Will you be so good as to take your leave, Lady Caroline Adair? I wish to treat you with all due courtesy, as you are Margaret's mother," said Wyvis, setting his teeth, "but you are saying unpardonable things to a man in his own house." "My dear man, there is nothing to be ashamed of!" cried Lady Caroline, as if very much surprised. "Your father and mother were very honest people, and I always thought it greatly to Mark Brand's credit that he adopted you. The odd thing was that so few people knew that you were not his son. You were only a month or two old when he married Mary Wyvis, however; for your father died before your birth; but there was no secret made of it at the time, I believe. And it is nearly thirty years. Things get forgotten." "Mother, can this be true?" said Wyvis, hoarsely. He was forced into asking the question by Lady Caroline's cool persistence. He was keenly conscious of the fact that Margaret, looking scared and bewildered, had shrunk away from him. "Yes, yes, it is true," said Mrs. Brand, with a burst of despairing tears. "We did not mean any harm, and nobody made any inquiries. There was nothing wrong about it--nothing. It was better for you, Wyvis, that was all."