"I have done that," she answered--"so far. I shall continue to do it. I do not want any help from you! I would rather die than owe you anything! Please understand this! You say I am your daughter, and I suppose I must believe it--but the knowledge brings me sorrow and shame. And I must work my way out of this sorrow and shame,--somehow! I will do all I can to retrieve the damaged life you have given me. I never knew my mother was alive--and now--I wish to forget it! If my father lived, I would go to him--" "Would you indeed!" and Lady Blythe rose, shaking her elegant skirts, and preening herself like a bird preparing for flight--"I'm afraid you would hardly receive a parental welcome! Fortunately for himself and for me, he is dead,--so you are quite untrammelled by any latent notions of filial duty. And you will never see me again after to-day!" "No?"--and the interrogation was put with the slightest inflection of satire--so fine as to be scarcely perceptible--but Lady Blythe caught it, and flushed angrily. "Of course not!" she said--"Do you think you, in your position of a mere farmer's girl, are likely to meet me in the greater world? You, without even a name--" "Would you have given me a name?" interposed the girl, calmly. "Of course! I should have invented one for you-- "I can do that for myself," said Innocent, quietly--"and so you are relieved from all trouble on my score. May I ask you to go now?" Lady Blythe stared at her. "Are you insolent, or only stupid?" she asked--"Do you realise what it is that I have told you--that I, Lady Blythe, wife of a peer, and moving in the highest ranks of society, am willing to take charge of you, feed you, clothe you, bring you out and marry you well? Do you understand, and still refuse?" "I understand--and I still refuse," replied Innocent--"I would accept, if you owned me as your daughter to your husband and to all the world--but as your 'adopted' child--as a lie under your roof--I refuse absolutely and entirely! Are you astonished that I should wish to live truly instead of falsely?" Lady Blythe gathered her priceless lace scarf round her elegant shoulders. "I begin to think it must have been all a bad dream!" she said, and laughed softly--"My little affair with your father cannot have really happened, and you cannot really be my child! I must consider it in that light! I feel I have done my part in the matter by coming here to see you and talk to you and make what I consider a very kind and reasonable proposition--you have refused it--and there is no more to be said." She settled her dainty hat more piquantly on her rich dark hair, and smiled agreeably. "Will you show me the way out? I left my motor-car on the high-road--my chauffeur did not care to bring it down your rather muddy back lane."