“Do you know who this is?” he said.  “Tell me, do you know this woman?”

Mademoiselle de St. Gre did not answer him.  She drew near, gently, to Mrs. Temple, whose head was bowed, whose agony I could only guess.

“Mrs. Clive,” she said softly, though her voice was shaken by a prescience, “won’t you tell me what has happened?  Won’t you speak to me—­Antoinette?”

The poor lady lifted up her arms, as though to embrace the girl, dropped them despairingly, and turned away.

“Antoinette,” she murmured, “Antoinette!”

For Nick had seized Antoinette by the hand, restraining her.

“You do not know what you are doing?” he cried angrily.  “Listen!”

I had stood bereft of speech, watching the scene breathlessly.  And now I would have spoken had not Mademoiselle astonished me by taking the lead.  I have thought since that I might have pieced together this much of her character.  Her glance at Nick surprised him momentarily into silence.

“I know that she is my dearest friend,” she said, “that she came to us in misfortune, and that we love her and trust her.  I do not know why she is here with Mr. Ritchie, but I am sure it is for some good reason.”  She laid a hand on Mrs. Temple’s shoulder.  “Mrs. Clive, won’t you speak to me?”

“My God, Antoinette, listen!” cried Nick; “Mrs. Clive is not her name.  I know her, David knows her.  She is an—­adventuress!”

Mrs. Temple gave a cry, and the girl shot at him a frightened, bewildered glance, in which a new-born love struggled with an older affection.

“An adventuress!” she repeated, her hand dropping, “oh, I do not believe it.  I cannot believe it.”

“You shall believe it,” said Nick, fiercely.  “Her name is not Clive.  Ask David what her name is.”

Antoinette’s lips moved, but she shirked the question.  And Nick seized me roughly.

“Tell her,” he said, “tell her!  My God, how can I do it?  Tell her, David.”

For the life of me I could not frame the speech at once, my pity and a new-found and surprising respect for her making it doubly hard to pronounce her sentence.  Suddenly she raised her head, not proudly, but with a dignity seemingly conferred by years of sorrow and of suffering.  Her tones were even, bereft of every vestige of hope.

“Antoinette, I have deceived you, though as God is my witness, I thought no harm could come of it.  I deluded myself into believing that I had found friends and a refuge at last.  I am Mrs. Temple.”

“Mrs. Temple!” The girl repeated the name sorrowfully, but perplexedly, not grasping its full significance.

“She is my mother,” said Nick, with a bitterness I had not thought in him, “she is my mother, or I would curse her.  For she has ruined my life and brought shame on a good name.”

He paused, his breath catching for very anger.  Mrs. Temple hid her face in her hands, while the girl shrank back in terror.  I grasped him by the arm.