"Of course I did. He was quite poor--and I should have been miserable running about the world with a man who depended on art for a living. Besides he was ceasing to be a lover--and as a husband he would have been insupportable. We managed everything very well--my own people were all in India--and my mother's friend, if she guessed my affair, said nothing about it,--wisely enough for her own sake!--so that when my time came I was able to go away on an easy pretext and get it all over secretly. Pierce came and stayed in a hotel close at hand--he was rather in a fright lest I should die!--it would have been such an awkward business for him!--however, all went well, and when I had quite recovered he took the child away from me, and left it at an old farmhouse he had once made a drawing of, saying he would call back for it--as if it were a parcel!" She laughed lightly. "He wrote and told me what he had done and gave me the address of the farm--then he went abroad, and I never heard of him again--" "He died," interposed Lord Blythe, slowly--"He died--alone and very poor--" "So I was told," she rejoined, indifferently--"Oh yes! I see you look at me as if you thought I had no heart! Perhaps I have not,--I used to have something like one,--your friend Armitage killed it in me. Anyhow, I knew the child had been adopted by the farm people as their own, and I took no further trouble. My parents came home from India to inherit an unexpected fortune, and they took me about with them a great deal--they were never told of my romantic escapade!--then I met you--and you married me." A sigh broke from him, but he said nothing. "You are sorry you did, I suppose!" she went on in a quick, reckless way--"Anyhow, I tried to do my duty. When I heard by chance that the old farmer who had taken care of the child was dead, I made up my mind to go and see what she was like. I found her, and offered to adopt her--but she wouldn't hear of it--so I let her be." Lord Blythe moved a little from his statuesque attitude of attention. "You told her you were her mother?" "I did." "And offered to 'adopt' your own child?" She gave an airy gesture. "It was the only thing to do! One cannot make a social scandal." "And she refused?" "She refused." "I admire her for it," said Lord Blythe, calmly. She shot an angry glance at him. He went on in cold, deliberate accents. "You were unprepared for the strange compensation you have received?--the sudden fame of your deserted daughter?" Her hands clasped and unclasped themselves nervously. "I knew nothing of it! Armitage is not an uncommon name, and I did not connect it with her. She has no right to wear it." "If her father were alive he would be proud that she wears it!--moreover he would give her the right to wear it, and would make it legal," said Lord Blythe sternly--"Out of old memory I can say that for him! You recognised each other at once, I suppose, when I presented her to you at the Duchess's reception?"