“Only let there be no doubt or suspicion on your part, my dear,” he went on.  “As you have travelled so far along this dolorous way, take courage and travel a little farther.  To stop, to turn back, is only to leave your mind open to all manner of imaginations worse very likely than the truth.  I will be quite plain with you.  This episode—­which I do not attempt to explain or excuse—­took place, and ended, several years before I first met your mother.  And it ended absolutely.  Never, by either written or spoken word, have I held any communication with Lesbia Faircloth since.  Never have I attempted to see her—­this in the interests of her reputation every bit as much as in those of my own.  For her station in life she was a woman of remarkable qualities and character.  She had made an ugly, a repulsive marriage, and she was childless.—­More than this it is not seemly I should tell you.”

Charles Verity waited a minute or so.  He still coaxed Damaris’ hand, calmly, soothingly.  And she lay very still watching him; but with half-closed eyes, striving to prevent the tears which asked so persistently to be shed.  For her heart went out to him in a new and over-flowing tenderness, in an exalted pity almost maternal.  Never had she felt him more attractive, more, in a sense, royally lovable than in this hour of weariness, of moral nakedness, and humiliation.

“Not until I had rejoined my regiment in India,” he presently continued, in the same low even tones, “did I hear of the birth of her son.  I have never seen him—­or made enquiries regarding him.  I meant to let the dead bury its dead in this matter.  For everyone concerned it seemed best and wisest so.  Therefore all you have told me to-night comes as news to me—­and in some respects as good news.  For I gather I have no reason to be ashamed of this young man—­which on your account, even more than on my own, is so much clear gain.—­But I oughtn’t to have brought you here to live at Deadham.  I ought to have taken the possibility of some accidental revelation, such as the present one, into serious account and saved you from that.  To expose you, however remotely, to the risk was both callous and stupid on my part.  I own I have a strong sentiment for this house.  It seemed natural and restful to return to it—­the only house to call a home, I have ever had.  And so much has happened during the last eight or nine-and-twenty years, to occupy my mind, that I had grown indifferent and had practically forgotten the risks.  This was selfish, self-indulgent, lacking in consideration and reverence towards you, towards your peace of mind, your innocence.—­And for it, my darling, I beg your forgiveness.”

Damaris sat up in the bed, raised her face to be kissed.

“No—­no,” she implored him, “don’t say that.  I can’t bear to have you say it—­to have you speak as if you had been, could ever be anything but beautiful and perfect towards me.  I can’t have you, not even for a little minute, step down, from the high place, which is your own, and talk of forgiveness.  It hurts me.—­I begin to understand that your world, a man’s world, is different to my world—­the world, I mean, in which I have been brought up.  I know what is right for myself—­but it would be silly to believe mine is the only rightness”—­