how I determined to fight this hideous wrong.  I went to Florence; I tried to see Madame Danterre; I engaged the detective—­all before I knew of your existence.  I came back to London and discovered that your father, John Dexter, had divorced his wife on account of David Bright.  Still I did not know anything of you.  Then, through Lady Dawning I found you out, and I made friends with Mrs. Delaport Green in order to see more of you.  Was there anything wrong in that?  You did not know your mother; you did not, presumably, care very deeply about her.  It was doubtful if you knew of her existence.  Soon the detective in Florence faded in my mind; he discovered nothing, but I retained him in case of any change.  Was I obliged, because I liked you, to give up the cause?  I never found out, I never tried to find out from you anything that bore on the case.  You must remember that I stopped you once in the wood at Groombridge when you wanted to tell me more about yourself, and that I again warned you when you wished to tell me about your mother’s letter to you.  As to Edgar Tonmore, I knew that he was penniless, and I thought it quite possible that you might, in the end, be penniless too.  It was for your own sake I wished you to make a richer marriage.  For I believed—­I still believe—­that David Bright made a last will when going out to Africa; I believed, and still believe, that by an accident that will was not sent to Lady Rose.  I thought then that your mother had, in some way, become possessed of the will, and I thought it more than likely that, when dying, she would make reparation by leaving the money where it ought to be.  I meant—­may I say so?—­to prove myself your friend, then, if you should allow it.  I know I kept in touch with you partly from curiosity as well as from natural attraction.  But, if I acted for the sake of another, I acted for you also.  Would it have been better or worse for you to have been friends with us if my suspicions of your mother’s conduct had proved true?  But believe me, Miss Dexter, I never for one moment could have thought of you with any taint of suspicion.  It is horrible to me to have it suggested.”

He rose as he finished speaking, and came nearer to her.

“That you, with your youth and your innocence and your candour!—­child, the very idea is impossible.  I have known men and women too well to fall into such an absurdity.  Send me away, if you like; I won’t intrude my friendship upon you, but look up now and let me see that you do not think this gross thing of me.”

Molly raised a white face and looked into his—­looked into eyes that had not at all times and in all places been sincere, but were sincere now.  A great rush of warm feeling came over her; a great sore seemed healed, and then she looked at him with hungry entreaty, as if a soul, shorn of all beauty, hungry, ragged, filthy, were asking help from another.  But the moment of danger, the moment of salvation passed away.