“How could she? How could she?” demanded Jane Raytham vehemently. “It was wicked! But how like her! Poor Peter! He lives everlastingly in rough seas.” And then the note of anger in her voice turned to one of anxiety. “Did Anita tell him anything?” “Not what he wanted to know,” replied Leslie. The visitor was quick to understand the meaning of that reply. “Do you know why he went?” “He went to find his child.” The beautiful face of Jane Raytham flushed a delicate pink, and paled again. “My child,” she said, in a low voice. “I suppose you despise me, don’t you?” Leslie shook her head. “No, why should I? If I despised every woman who had a baby----” “I don’t mean that. But I allowed them to take it away. I didn’t want to, Leslie. Will you believe that? I wanted to keep the child with me. I fought hard for him. The compromise was a desperately weak one, but at least I gained that point.” “What was the compromise?” Lady Raytham smiled faintly. “If you didn’t despise me before, you’ll despise me now,” she said. She was at the fireplace in her old attitude: arm along the mantel, forehead resting on the back of her hand, her eyes fixed on the fire. “They agreed to that. If it was a girl I should keep her; if it was a boy, he should go away. A mad, wicked idea, so grossly unfair to the child! But I’m terribly tender toward girls. I can’t see a girl suffer without experiencing a shrivelled-up feeling inside. I wonder if you know what my girlhood was. If it had been a girl I should have kept her with me and braved everything. But it was a boy--a wonderful boy--they told me of it afterward. I wish I’d seen him, known him, if only for a day, but then I should never, never have allowed him to go.” She turned her face away and her shoulders shook. Leslie sat at the desk and drew fantastic, meaningless arabesques upon her blotting pad; and when that storm of sobbing had died down she said: “I suppose it is absurd to ask you if there is any clue by which the child could be traced? Of course you’ve explored every avenue. You’ve discovered nothing?” Jane was manipulating her handkerchief, her back toward her, and there was finality in the shake of her head. “No. I’ve already tried. I didn’t tell Anita, but for months I’ve had detectives searching. I thought he was in a happy home, you know; I never dreamed that he’d been left.” She could not go on. It was quite a long time before she mastered her emotion. “Druze told me that night--that horrible night she went away. Laughed in my face when I asked her where the child was. That is why I went after her. I guessed that she had gone to Anita’s, and when I found her dead on the path I was frantic. I thought she must have some hidden paper that would tell me. But when I searched, there was nothing--nothing!” Jane Raytham turned her face away from the girl.