“And yet you loved her?” Saltash said, with a queer twist of the features that was not of mirth.

“I loved her, yes.  If I hadn’t loved her I would never have come to her when she called.  That is love—­the thing that doesn’t die.”  A sudden throb sounded in Larpent’s voice.  He paused for a moment in his walk, then paced on.  “You may laugh at it—­call it what you will—­but there is a power on the earth that is stronger than anything else, and when that power speaks we have got to obey.  I didn’t want to come.  You think me a damn fool for coming.  But I had to.  That’s all there is to it.”

“I don’t think you any sort of a fool,” Saltash threw in briefly.  “You did the only thing possible.”

“Yes, the only thing.  I came to her.  If I hadn’t come, she’d have died—­alone.  But that alone wasn’t why she sent for me—­it was the primary reason, but not the only one.  There was another.”  Larpent ceased his pacing and deliberately faced the man who stood listening.  “You know what happened to-night,” he said.  “That child—­the scaramouch you picked out of the gutter at Valrosa—­Toby—­do you realize—­have you grasped—­the meaning of that yet?”

Saltash flung up his head with an arrogant gesture.  “There is one thing about her you have not grasped,” he said.  “But go on!  I may as well hear it.”

Larpent went on steadily.  “When I came to her yesterday she told me of a child that had been born to her—­a child she had loved but had been unable to protect.  It was a long story.  Spentoli the Italian artist knows it from beginning to end.  You know Spentoli?”

“I know him,” said Saltash.

“Spentoli is a blackguard,” Larpent said, “the sort that is born, not made afterwards.  He has painted Rozelle over and over again.  He raves about her.  He may be a genius.  He is certainly mad.  He wanted the child for a model, and Rozelle could not prevent it.  So she told me.  I believe she was dependent upon him at the time.  She had been ill.  She has been ill for years with heart trouble.  And so he had the child, but only for a time.  The girl had a will of her own and broke away, joined a circus in California.  He tracked her down, captured her again, tried to make a slave of her.  But she was like a wild creature.  She stabbed him one night and fled.  That was Rozelle’s trouble.  She had never been able to hear of her again.  She begged me to find—­and save her.  I promised to do my best.  But—­there was no need to search very far.  To-night Spentoli pulled the wires again.  It was he who switched on that light.  It was he who killed Rozelle.  The girl in the gallery with you—­Toby—­was her daughter—­and mine.  You heard Rozelle cry out when she saw her.  She never spoke again.”

Larpent ceased to speak.  He was no longer looking at Saltash.  The far vision seemed to have caught his gaze again.  He stared beyond.

Saltash watched him with working brows.  “Are you wanting to lay claim to the girl?” he asked abruptly.