Irene clutched at the recollection which till now she had preferred to banish from her mind.  Piers was not born of the same mother, might he not inherit his father’s finer qualities, and, together with them, something noble from the woman whom his father loved?  Could she but know that history The woman was a law-breaker; repeatability gave her hard names; but Irene used her own judgment in such matters, and asked only for knowledge of facts.  She had as good as forgotten the irregularity of Piers Otway’s birth.  Whom, indeed, did it or could it concern?  Her father, least of all men, would dwell upon it as a subject of reproach.  But her father was very capable of pointing to Daniel and Alexander, with a shake of the head.  He had a prejudice against Piers—­this letter reminded her of it only too well.  It might be feared that he was rather glad than otherwise of the “sheer scandal” Olga had conveyed to him.

Confident in his love of her, which would tell ill on the side of his reasonableness, his justice, she had not, during these crucial days, thought much about her father.  She saw his face now, if she spoke to him of Piers.  Dr. Derwent, like all men of brains, had a good deal of the aristocratic temper; he scorned the vulgarity of the vulgar; he turned in angry impatience from such sorry creatures as those two men; and often lashed with his contempt the ignoble amusements of the crowd.  Olga doubtless had told him of the singer in short skirts——­

She shed a few tears.  The very meanness of the injury done her at this crisis of emotion heightened its cruelty.

Piers might come to the Castle this morning.  Now and then she glanced from her window, if perchance she should see him approaching; but all she saw was a group of holiday-makers, the happily infrequent tourists who cared to turn from the beaten track up the dale to visit the Castle.  She did not know whether Helen was at home, or had rambled away.  If Piers came, and his call was announced to her, could she go forth and see him?

Not to do so, would be unjust, both to herself and to him.  The relations between them demanded, of all things, honesty and courage.  No little courage, it was true; for she must speak to him plainly of things from which she shrank even in communing with herself.

Yet she had done as hard a thing as this.  Harder, perhaps, that interview with Arnold Jacks which set her free.  Honesty and courage —­clearness of sight and strength of purpose where all but every girl would have drifted dumbly the common way—­had saved her life from the worst disaster:  saved, too, the man whom her weakness would have wronged.  Had she not learnt the lesson which life sets before all, but which only a few can grasp and profit by?

Towards midday she left her room, and went in search of Helen; not finding her within doors, she stepped out on to the sward, and strolled in the neighbourhood of the Castle.  A child whom she knew approached her.