"You did?" cried Joan. She was startled. For a moment, too, she was disconcerted. She knew nothing of any such visit. But the statement was so easily capable of proof that the reaper would hardly have made it, had it not been true. And she was quick to see how strong a presumption such a visit would create, that he was the girl's father. Then she sprang to the weak point in the statement. "If it were true that Cynthia was your daughter, and that you claimed her a year ago, how is it that you wait until a chance meeting in a field brings you face to face?" "There's no chance about it, believe me," James Challoner returned. For it was he. The delicate manners had been rubbed off him, the gentle voice, which had charmed so many dollars from reluctant pockets long ago at Punta del Inca, had thickened and grown husky, the well-knit figure had spread to heaviness. But this was James Challoner, after fourteen years had told their tale. "The old ladies lied to me. Yes, actually lied to me," and he spread out his hands in indignation. "Lied to a father about his daughter! They were religious people too!" "If they did lie," Robert Daventry burst in, "they did the best thing they ever did in all their good lives." James Challoner waved Robert Daventry and his outburst aside. He kept his eyes fixed upon Joan's face. "Yes, they lied to me," he said. "I gave them the day and the month and the year, when I placed Doris on the turnstile. They pretended to make inquiries, and they lied to me. They told me she was dead. Ah!" and he suddenly leaned forward and pointed an accusing finger at Joan, "You are glad to hear that. Yes, I thought you would be." Try as she did, Joan had not been able to keep a flash of joy out of her face. "It's a matter of indifference to me," she replied, "since Cynthia is not your child." She still clung obstinately to that belief. He might have heard the story from James Challoner, and James Challoner might be dead. Any hypothesis was possible in her eyes, except the one which was true. She would not have it that this man was Cynthia's father. "Oh, it is a matter of indifference to you!" said Challoner ironically. "I will tell you something that won't be. Those old ladies lied just as clumsily as I have ever seen it done. Poor old souls, they were rattled out of their senses at the thought of the sin they were committing. A child could have seen they were lying--as I did who am no child. And I began to cast about for a reason for the lie. It wasn't very difficult to find it. Some one had adopted her, some one they didn't want me to discover, some one rich, then, I reckoned, who could give the girl a position." At the word "rich" Robert and Joan exchanged a glance. So much were they disconcerted by Challoner's knowledge and assurance that now they hoped rather than feared that blackmail was the end he had in view.