‘That’s more like it,’ said Miss.  French cheerfully.  ’Now we shall get on together.  It’s very shocking, my dear.  A person of my strict morality hardly knows how to look you in the face.  Perhaps you had rather I didn’t try.  Very well.  Now tell me all about it, comfortably.  I have a guess, you know.’

‘What is it?’

’Wait a little.  I don’t want to be laughed at.  Is it any one I know?’

‘You have never seen him, and I dare say never heard of him.’

Beatrice stared incredulously.

‘I wouldn’t tell fibs, Nancy.’

‘I’m telling the truth.’

‘It’s very queer, then.’

‘Who did you think—?’

The speaking automaton, as though by defect of mechanism, stopped short.

’Look straight at me.  I shouldn’t have been surprised to hear that it was Luckworth Crewe.’

Nancy’s defiant gaze, shame in anguish shielding itself with the front of audacity, changed to utter astonishment.  The blood rushed back into her cheeks; she voiced a smothered exclamation of scorn.

‘The father of my child?  Luckworth Crewe?’

‘I thought it not impossible,’ said Beatrice, plainly baffled.

‘It was like you.’  Nancy gave a hard laugh.  ’You judged me by yourself.  Have another guess!’

Surprised both at the denial, so obviously true, and at the unexpected tone with which Nancy was meeting her attack, Miss.  French sat meditative.

‘It’s no use guessing,’ she said at length, with complete good-humour.  ‘I don’t know of any one else.’

‘Very well.  You can’t expect me to tell you.’

’As you please.  It’s a queer thing; I felt pretty sure.  But if you’re telling the truth, I don’t care a rap who the man is.’

‘You can rest in peace,’ said Nancy, with careless scorn.

‘Any way of convincing me, except by saying it?’

‘Yes.  Wait here a moment.’

She left the room, and returned with the note which Crewe had addressed to her from the hotel at Falmouth.

‘Read that, and look at the date.’

Beatrice studied the document, and in silence canvassed the possibilities of trickery.  No; it was genuine evidence.  She remembered the date of Crewe’s journey to Falmouth, and, in this new light, could interpret his quarrelsome behaviour after he had returned.  Only the discovery she had since made inflamed her with a suspicion which till then had never entered her mind.

‘Of course, you didn’t let him see you?’

‘Of course not.’.

’All right.  Don’t suppose I wanted to insult you.  I took it for granted you were married.  Of course it happened before your father’s death, and his awkward will obliged you to keep it dark?’

Again Nancy was smitten with fear.  Deeming Miss.  French an unscrupulous enemy, she felt that to confess marriage was to abandon every hope.  Pride appealed to her courage, bade her, here and now, have done with the ignoble fraud; but fear proved stronger.  She could not face exposure, and all that must follow.