"That night my child was born. That was twenty-eight years ago, but it seems as if it were but yesterday that I held his small, warm body in my arms.... Then comes a period of which I remember nothing, and when I finally recovered my senses, they told me my child was dead.... As soon as I was able to travel, I returned to my old home in Seville and there I lived, working and praying--praying for my own soul and for that of my poor baby, who had died without receiving the sacrament of baptism.... Years passed. I had become resigned to my lot, when one day I received a letter from Lord Wilmersley. Oh! If I had only destroyed it unopened, how much anguish would have been spared me! But at first when I read it, I thought my happiness would have killed me, for Lord Wilmersley wrote that my boy was not dead and that if I would meet him in Paris, he would give me further news of him. I hesitated not a moment. At once did I set out on my journey. On arriving in Paris I went to the hotel he had indicated and was shown into a private _salon_. There for the first time in a quarter of a century I saw again the man I had once regarded as my husband. At first I had difficulty in recognising him, for now his true character was written in every line of his face and figure. But I hardly gave a thought either to him or to my wrongs, so great was my impatience to hear news of my son.... Then that fiend began to play with me as a cat with a mouse. Yes, my boy lived, had made his way in the world--that was all he would tell me. My child had been adopted by some well-to-do people, who had brought him up as their own--no, I needn't expect to hear another word. Yes, he was a fine, strong lad--he would say no more.... Can you imagine the scene? Finally, having wrought me up to the point where I would have done anything to wring the truth from him, he said to me: 'I have recently married a young wife and I am not such a fool as to trust my honour in the keeping of a girl who married an old man like me for his money. Now I have a plan to propose to you. Come and live with her as her maid and help me to guard her from all eyes, and if you fulfil your duties faithfully, at the end of three years I promise that you shall see your son.' "His revolting proposition made my blood boil. Never, never, I told him, would I accept such a humiliating situation. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said that in that case I need never hope to hear what had become of my son. I raved, threatened, pleaded, but he remained inflexible, and finally I agreed to do his bidding." "So you, who call yourself a Christian, actually consented to help that wretch to persecute his unfortunate young wife?" demanded Cyril sternly. Valdriguez flung her head back defiantly.