She did not look at him.  She did not wish him to see the tears spring suddenly to her eyes.  She brought her voice to a firm quietness.  She thought of the woman, Mrs. Gladney, who was coming; of his child, whom he did not recognize.  She looked down toward the abbey.  The girl was walking there between old Mr. Margrave and Baron.  She had once hated both the woman and the child.  She knew that to be true to her blood she ought to hate them always, but there crept into her heart now a strange feeling of pity for both.  Perhaps the new interest in her life was driving out hatred.  There was something more.  The envelope she had found that day on the moor was addressed to that woman’s husband, from whom she had been separated—­no one knew why—­for years.  What complication and fresh misery might be here?

“You may keep the ring,” she said.

“Thank you,” was his reply, and he put it on his finger, looking down at it with an enigmatical expression.  “And is there nothing more?”

She willfully misconstrued his question.  She took the torn pieces of envelope from her pocket and handed them to him.  “These are yours,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows.  “Thank you again.  But I do not see their value.  One could almost think you were a detective, you are so armed.”

“Who is he?  What is he to you?” she asked.

“He is an unlucky man, like myself, and my best friend.  He helped me out of battle, murder and sudden death more than once, and we shared the same blanket times without number.”

“Where is he now?” she said in a whisper, not daring to look at him lest she should show how disturbed she was.

“He is in a hospital in New York.”

“Has he no friends?”

“Do I count as nothing at all?”

“I mean no others—­no wife or family?”

“He has a wife, and she has a daughter.  That is all I know.  They have been parted through some cause.  Why do you ask?  Do you know him?”

“No, I do not know him.”

Do you know the wife?  Please tell me, for at his request I am trying to find her, and I have failed.”

“Yes, I know her,” she said painfully and slowly.  “You need search no longer.  She will be at your hotel to-night.”

He started.  Then he said:  “I’m glad of that.  How did you come to know?  Are you friends?”

Though her face was turned from him resolutely, he saw a flush creep up her neck to her hair.

“We are not friends,” she said vaguely.  “But I know that she is coming to see her daughter.”

“Who is her daughter?”

She raised her parasol toward the spot where Mildred Margrave stood and said, “That is her daughter.”

“Miss Margrave?  Why has she a different name?”

“Let Mrs. Gladney explain that to you.  Do not make yourself known to the daughter till you see her mother.  Believe me, it will be better for the daughter’s sake.”