Roma caught her breath with a stifled gasp of self-congratulation, hoping now to hear the whole interesting story without moving from her chair. In her hope she was not disappointed. "I have never ceased to regret the substitution of that spurious infant in place of my own lovely child," sighed Mr. Clarke. Roma gave a start of consternation, and almost betrayed herself by screaming out aloud, but she bit her lips in time, while her wildly throbbing heart seemed to sink like a stone in her breast. Doctor Jay said questioningly: "You have never been able to love your adopted daughter as your own?" "Never, never!" groaned Edmund Clarke despairingly. "And her mother?" "She knows nothing, suspects nothing; for the one object of my life has been to keep her in ignorance of the truth that Roma is not her own child. She has an almost slavish devotion to the girl, but I think in her inmost heart she realizes Roma's lack of lovable qualities, though she is too loyal to her child to admit the truth even to me." "It is strange, most strange, that no clue has ever been found that would lead to the discovery of your lost little one," mused the old doctor, and after a moment's silence the other answered: "One thing I would like to know, and that is the family from which Roma sprang. It must have been low, judging frankly from the girl herself." The listener clinched her hands till the blood oozed from the tender palms on hearing these words, and she would have liked to clutch the speaker's throat instead. But she sat still, like one paralyzed, a deadly hatred tugging at her heartstrings, listening as one listens to the sentence of death, while Doctor Jay cleared his throat, and answered: "I am sorry, most sorry, that your surmises are correct, but naturally one would not expect to find good blood in a foundling asylum, though when I sent Nurse Jenks for the child, I told her to get an infant of honest parentage, if she could." "Then you know Roma's antecedents?" Mr. Clarke questioned anxiously. "My dear friend, I wish that you would not press the subject." "Answer me; I must know! The bitterest truth could not exceed my suspicions!" almost raved Mr. Clarke in his eagerness, and again the clinched hands of the listener tightened as if they were about his throat. Hate, swift, terrible, murderous, had sprung to life, full grown in the angry girl's heart. She heard the old doctor cough and sigh again, and a futile wish rose in her that he had dropped down dead before he ever came to Cliffdene. Doctor Jay, all unconscious of her proximity and her charitable wishes, proceeded hesitatingly: "Since you insist, I must own the truth. Nurse Jenks deceived me." "How?" hoarsely.