“I never told you of my visit to that menage, four-and-twenty years ago?”

“Never, that I remember.  But if you had I should have forgotten.  What did they matter to me then?  I myself only saw Lady Rose once, so far as I remember, before she misconducted herself.  And afterwards—­well, one doesn’t trouble one’s self about the women that have gone under.”

Something lightened behind Sir Wilfrid’s straw-colored lashes.  He bent over his coffee-cup and daintily knocked off the end of his cigarette with a beringed little finger.

“The women who have—­not been able to pull up?”

Lady Henry paused.

“If you like to put it so,” she said, at last.  Sir Wilfrid did not raise his eyes.  Lady Henry took up her strongest glasses from the table and put them on.  But it was pitifully evident that even so equipped she saw but little, and that her strong nature fretted perpetually against the physical infirmity that teased it.  Nevertheless, some unspoken communication passed between them, and Sir Wilfrid knew that he had effectually held up a protecting hand for Lady Rose.

“Well, let me tell you my tale first,” he said; and gave the little reminiscence in full.  When he described the child, Lady Henry listened eagerly.

“Hm,” she said, when he came to an end; “she was jealous, you say, of her mother’s attentions to you?  She watched you, and in the end she took possession of you?  Much the same creature, apparently, then as now.”

“No moral, please, till the tale is done,” said Sir Wilfrid, smiling.  “It’s your turn.”

Lady Henry’s face grew sombre.

[Illustration:  “LADY HENRY LISTENED EAGERLY”]

“All very well,” she said.  “What did your tale matter to you?  As for mine—­”

The substance of hers was as follows, put into chronological order: 

Lady Rose had lived some ten years after Dalrymple’s death.  That time she passed in great poverty in some chambres garnies at Bruges, with her little girl and an old Madame Le Breton, the maid, housekeeper, and general factotum who had served them in the country.  This woman, though of a peevish, grumbling temper, was faithful, affectionate, and not without education.  She was certainly attached to little Julie, whose nurse she had been during a short period of her infancy.  It was natural that Lady Rose should leave the child to her care.  Indeed, she had no choice.  An old Ursuline nun, and a kind priest who at the nun’s instigation occasionally came to see her, in the hopes of converting her, were her only other friends in the world.  She wrote, however, to her father, shortly before her death, bidding him good-bye, and asking him to do something for the child.  “She is wonderfully like you,” so ran part of the letter.  “You won’t ever acknowledge her, I know.  That is your strange code.  But at least give her what will keep her from want, till she can earn her living.  Her old nurse will take care of her, I have taught her, so far.  She is already very clever.  When I am gone she will attend one of the convent schools here.  And I have found an honest lawyer who will receive and pay out money.”