What Val answered was spoken in a low tone, and she caught one word only, Providence.  She gave a growl, and continued.

“At any rate, he’s gone; and you have now no pretext for refusing me Maude.  I shall take her, and bring her up, and you must make me a liberal allowance for her.”

“I shall not part with Maude,” said Val, in quiet tones of decision.

“You can’t refuse her to me, I say,” rejoined the dowager, nodding her head defiantly; “she’s my own grandchild.”

“And my child.  The argument on this point years ago was unsatisfactory, Lady Kirton; I do not feel disposed to renew it.  Maude will remain in her own home.”

“You are a vile man!” cried the dowager, with an inflamed face.  “Pass me the wine.”

He filled her glass, and left the decanter with her.  She resumed.

“One day, when I was with Maude, in that last illness of hers in London, when we couldn’t find out what was the matter with her, poor dear, she wrote you a letter; and I know what was in it, for I read it.  You had gone dancing off somewhere for a week.”

“To the Isle of Wight, on your account,” put in Lord Hartledon, quietly; “on that unhappy business connected with your son who lives there.  Well, ma’am?”

“In that letter Maude said she wished me to have charge of her children, if she died; and begged you to take notice that she said it,” continued the dowager.  “Perhaps you’ll say you never had that letter?”

“On the contrary, madam, I admit receiving it,” he replied.  “I daresay I have it still.  Most of Maude’s letters lie in my desk undisturbed.”

“And, admitting that, you refuse to act up to it?”

“Maude wrote in a moment of pique, when she was angry with me.  But—­”

“And I have no doubt she had good cause for anger!”

“She had great cause,” was his answer, spoken with a strange sadness that surprised both the dowager and Lady Hartledon.  Thomas Carr was twirling his wine-glass gently round on the white cloth, neither speaking nor looking.

“Later, my wife fully retracted what she said in that letter,” continued Val.  “She confessed that she had written it partly at your dictation, Lady Kirton, and said—­but I had better not tell you that, perhaps.”

“Then you shall tell me, Lord Hartledon; and you are a two-faced man, if you shuffle out of it.”

“Very well.  Maude said that she would not for the whole world allow her children to be brought up by you; she warned me also not to allow you to obtain too much influence over them.”

“It’s false!” said the dowager, in no way disconcerted.

“It is perfectly true:  and Maude told me you knew what her sentiments were upon the point.  Her real wish, as expressed to me, was, that the children should remain with me in any case, in their proper home.”

“You say you have that other letter still?” cried the dowager, who was not always very clear in her conversation.