He emphasised the name, and Armitage started as though struck with a whip.

“Innocent!” he muttered—­“The child—­yes!—­but I couldn’t make enough to send money for it after a while—­I paid as long as I could—­”

He trembled,—­his fine eyes had a strained look of anguish in them.

“Not dead too?” he said—­“Surely not—­the people at the farm had a good name—­they would not be cruel to a child—­”

Blythe gripped him by the arm.

“Come,” he said—­“We cannot talk here—­there are too many people about—­I must have you to myself.  Never mind your appearance—­many an R. A. cuts a worse figure than you do for the sake of ‘pose’!  You are entirely picturesque”—­and he relieved his pent-up feelings by a laugh—­“And there’s nothing strange in your coming to my room to see the particular view I want from my windows.”

Thus persuaded, Armitage gathered his drawings and painting materials together, and followed his friend, who quickly led the way into the Hotel.  The gorgeously liveried hall-porter nodded familiarly to the artist, whom he had seen for several seasons selling his work on the landing, and made a good-natured comment on his “luck” in having secured the patronage of a rich English “Milor,” but otherwise little notice was taken of the incongruous couple as they passed up the stairs to “Milor’s” private rooms on the first floor, where, as soon as they entered, Blythe shut and locked the door.

“Now, Pierce, I have you!” he said, affectionately taking him by the shoulders and pushing him towards a chair.  “Why, in heaven’s name, did you never let me know you were alive?  Everyone thought you were dead years and years ago!”

Armitage sat down, and taking off his cap, passed his hand through his thick crop of silvery hair.

“I spread that report myself,” he said.  “I wanted to get out of it all—­to give up!—­to forget that such a place as London existed.  I was sick to death of it!—­of its conventions, and vile hypocrisies—­its ‘bounders’ in art as in everything else!—­ besides, I should have been in the way—­Maude was tired of me—­”

He broke off, with an abstracted look.

“You know all about it, you say?” he went on after a pause—­“She told you—­”

“She told me the night she died,” answered Blythe quietly—­“After a silence of nearly twenty years!”

Armitage gave a short, sharp sigh.  “Women are strange creatures!” he said.  “I don’t think they know when they are loved.  I loved her—­much more than she knew,—­she seemed to me the most beautiful thing on earth!—­and when she asked me to run away with her—­”

“She asked you?”