Larpent paced on with bent head. "I was her husband. But I was at sea and she was on shore. And so I lost her. She was not made to stand against temptation. It came to her when I was on the other side of the world. When I got back, she was gone. And I--I never followed her. The thing was hopeless. She was that sort, you understand. It was first one and then another with her. I dropped her out of my life, and let her go. I didn't realize then--what I know now--that the power to rescue and to hold her was mine. If I had, I might have gone after her. I can't say. But I was too bitter at the time to feel it was worth while. I went back to the sea and left her to work out her own damnation." "And yet you loved her?" Saltash said, with a queer twist of the features that was not of mirth. "I loved her, yes. If I hadn't loved her I would never have come to her when she called. That is love--the thing that doesn't die." A sudden throb sounded in Larpent's voice. He paused for a moment in his walk, then paced on. "You may laugh at it--call it what you will--but there is a power on the earth that is stronger than anything else, and when that power speaks we have got to obey. I didn't want to come. You think me a damn fool for coming. But I had to. That's all there is to it." "I don't think you any sort of a fool," Saltash threw in briefly. "You did the only thing possible." "Yes, the only thing. I came to her. If I hadn't come, she'd have died--alone. But that alone wasn't why she sent for me--it was the primary reason, but not the only one. There was another." Larpent ceased his pacing and deliberately faced the man who stood listening. "You know what happened to-night," he said. "That child--the scaramouch you picked out of the gutter at Valrosa--Toby--do you realize--have you grasped--the meaning of that yet?" Saltash flung up his head with an arrogant gesture. "There is one thing about her you have not grasped," he said. "But go on! I may as well hear it." Larpent went on steadily. "When I came to her yesterday she told me of a child that had been born to her--a child she had loved but had been unable to protect. It was a long story. Spentoli the Italian artist knows it from beginning to end. You know Spentoli?" "I know him," said Saltash.