Innocent said nothing--but merely opened the door and stood aside for her visitor to pass. A curious tightening at her heart oppressed her as she thought that this elegant, self-possessed, exquisitely attired creature was actually her "mother!"--and she could have cried out with the pain which was so hard to bear. Suddenly Lady Blythe came to an abrupt standstill. "You will not kiss me?" she said--"Not even for your father's sake?" With a quick sobbing catch in her breath, the girl looked up--her "mother" was a full head taller than she. She lifted her fair head--her eyes were full of tears. Her lips quivered--Lady Blythe stooped and kissed them lightly. "There!--be a good girl!" she said. "You have the most extraordinary high-flown notions, and I think they will lead you into trouble! However, I'll give you one more chance--if at the end of this year you would like to come to me, my offer to you still holds good. After that--well!--as you yourself said, you will have no mother!" "I have never had one!" answered Innocent, in low choked accents--"And--I shall never have one!" Lady Blythe smiled--a cold, amused smile, and passed out through the hall into the garden. "What delightful flowers!" she exclaimed, in a sweet, singing voice, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening--"A perfect paradise! No wonder Briar Farm is so famous! It's perfectly charming! Is this the way? Thanks ever so much!" This, as Innocent opened the gate--"Let me see!--I go up the old by-road?--yes?--and the main road joins it at the summit?--No, pray don't trouble to come with me--I can find my car quite easily! Good-bye!" And picking up her dainty skirt with one ungloved hand, on which two diamond rings shone like circlets of dew, she nodded, smiled, and went her way--Innocent standing at the gate and watching her go with a kind of numbed patience as though she saw a figure in a dream vanishing slowly with the dawn of day. In truth she could hardly grasp the full significance of what had happened--she did not feel, even remotely, the slightest attraction towards this suddenly declared "mother" of hers--she could hardly believe the story. Yet she knew it must be true,--no woman of title and position would thus acknowledge a stigma on her own life without any cause for the confession. She stood at the gate still watching, though there was nothing now to watch, save the bending trees, and the flowering wild plants that fringed each side of the old by-road. Priscilla's voice calling her in a clear, yet lowered tone, startled her at last--she slowly shut the gate and turned in answer. "Yes, dear? What is it?" Priscilla trotted out from under the porch, full of eager curiosity. "Has the lady gone?" "Yes." "What did she want with ye, dearie?" "Nothing very much!" and Innocent smiled--a strange, wistful smile--"Only just what you thought!--she wished to buy something from Briar Farm--and I told her it was not to be sold!" CHAPTER XI