“Afterward my father and my uncles made every effort to get the child away from you, but he was hidden; you know how carefully he was hidden so that she might never find him. For ten years they searched for him, and you. For ten years she wrote to you, begging you to let her have him, if only for a little while at a time. She promised to restore him to you. You never replied. You scorned her. We were rich, very rich. But our money was of no help to us in the search for her boy. You had secreted him too well. At last, one day, she told me what it was that you accused her of doing. She told me about Guido Feverelli, her music-master. I knew him, James. He had known her from childhood. He was one of the finest men I have ever seen.” “He was in love with her,” grated Brood. “Perhaps. Who knows? But if so, he never uttered so much as one word of love to her. He challenged you. Why did you refuse to fight him?” “Because she begged me not to kill him. Did she tell you that?” “Yes. But that was not the real reason. It was because you were not sure of your ground.” “I deny that!” “Never mind! It is enough that poor Feverelli passed out of her life. She did not see him again until just before she died. He was a noble gentleman. He wrote but one letter to her after that wretched day in this house. I have it here in this packet.” She drew a package of letters, tied with a white ribbon, from her bosom and laid it upon the table before him. “But one letter from him,” she went on. “I have brought it here for you to read. But not now. There are other letters and documents here for you to consider. They are from the grave. Ah, I do not wonder that you shrink and draw back from them. They convict you, James.” “Now I can see why you have taken up this fight against me. You--you knew she was innocent,” he said in a low, unsteady voice. “And why I have hated you, _aïe?_ But what you do not understand is how I could have brought myself to the point of loving you.” “Loving me! Good Heaven, woman, what do you------”