“She told me that my name is Blagdon. My father is enormously rich, and that you ran away with an officer when I was a kid, and were divorced, and a year later, you came and stole me from my nurse, and brought me off here. That’s the story!--it sounds crude, but she swore it was true and in all the papers. I can get over the divorce all right,” continued Cara, with an air of superb generosity, “but really and truly, Mum, I cannot forgive you for kidnapping me, and bringing me off abroad, to lead this wretched, poverty-stricken life.” “Cara,” cried her mother, rising to her feet, and speaking with unexpected violence, “you have heard a garbled tale--only one side. Now you shall hear mine,” and standing erect, confronting her daughter, she poured forth the story of her wrongs, her misery, and her married life. Her eloquence--the eloquence of a bursting heart--was such, that even Cara for a moment felt moved, ashamed, yes, and repentant. So overwhelming was the effect of her mother’s picture of a blighted youth, a life of solitude, and her passionate attachment to herself, that Cara for once betrayed into real personal feeling, fell into her mother’s arms, overcome by a storm of unparalleled emotion. At last, with sobs and caresses from Letty, murmurs of penitence and adoration from Cara, mother and daughter, exhausted by this violent strain, separated at last, to seek what rest they might. For hours Cara lay watching the window with hard restless eyes, turning over her mother’s story in her mind, and weighing it remorselessly. As time passed, her feelings had subsided; it was one thing to be touched by a beautiful face, an impassioned pleading, and unfortunate history; it was another, in the dim, pale dawn, to recall facts--remorseless facts. The fact of the divorce--the fact that her mother had stolen her--the fact that she was an heiress--the fact that she, Cara, with all her beauty, good birth, and cravings, was poor and insignificant, and living on a few francs a week at a detestable old Swiss farm. Of course, she was fond of the Mum; certainly she was fond of her; and she had had a horrid life,--but probably she had not known how to manage people. Probably?--why, of course not--she never could manage anyone! She, Cara, had her own life to lead, and must strike out for herself. Meanwhile she resolved to be very kind and good to the Mum,--and to keep no more trysts. What brutes of men to talk! For the future, she resolved to remain under her mother’s wing; it would be too ridiculous for a great heiress to make herself cheap! Letty as she lay also watching her window, never slept at all; her thoughts were too active. She recalled Cara’s manner, her callous admissions, her bombshell, and subsequently her surprising breakdown. This, she knew from experience, to be but a temporary affair--there had been former scenes and reconciliations, from which Cara had, as on the present occasion, emerged victorious! CHAPTER XXXIII