and showed me a small pale infant asleep.  ‘She’s motherless,’ he added, ’and I’m taking her to my relatives.  But I have to ride some distance from here on very urgent business, and if you will look after her for to-night I’ll call for her to-morrow.  Poor little innocent!  She’s hungry and fretful.  I haven’t anything to give her and the storm looks like continuing.  Will you let her stay with you?’ ‘Certainly!’ said I, without thinking a bit further about it.  ‘Leave her here by all means.  We’ll see she gets all she wants.’  He gave me the child at once and said in a very soft voice:  ’You are most generous!—­“verily I have not found so great a faith, no not in Israel!” You’re sure you don’t mind?’ ‘Not at all!’ I answered him,—­’You’ll come back for her to-morrow, of course.’  He smiled and said—­’Oh yes, of course!  To-morrow!  I’m really very much obliged to you!’ Then he seemed to think for a moment and put his hand in his pocket, but I stopped him—­’No, sir,’ I said, ’excuse me, but I don’t want any pay for giving a babe a night’s shelter.’  He looked at me very straight with his big clear hazel eyes, and then shook hands with me.  ‘You’re an honest fellow,’ he said,—­and he stooped and kissed the child he had put into my arms.  ’I’m extremely sorry to trouble you, but the storm is too much for this helpless little creature.’  ’You yourself are wet through,’ I interrupted.  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he answered,—­’for me nothing matters.  Thank you a thousand times!  Good-night!’ The rain was coming down faster than ever and I stepped back into the shed, covering the child up so that the drifting wet should not beat upon it.  He came after me and kissed it again, saying ’Good-night, poor little innocent, good-night!’ three or four times.  Then he went off quickly and sprang into his saddle and in the blur of rain I saw horse and man turn away.  He waved his hand once and his handsome pale face gleamed upon me like that of a ghost in the storm.  ‘Till to-morrow!’ he called, and was gone.  I took the child into the house and called Priscilla.  She was always a rough one as you know, even in her younger days, and she at once laid her tongue to with a will and as far as she dared called me a fool for my pains.  And so I was, for when I came to think of it the man was a stranger to me, and I had never asked him his name.  It was just his handsome face and the way he had with him that had thrown me off my guard as it were; so I stood and looked silly enough, I suppose, while Priscilla fussed about with the baby, for it had wakened and was crying.  Well!”—­and Jocelyn heaved a short sigh—­ “That’s about all!  We never saw the man again, and the child was never claimed; but every six months I received a couple of bank-notes in an envelope bearing a different postmark each time, with the words:  ‘For Innocent’ written inside—­”

She uttered a quick, almost terrified exclamation, and drew her hand away from his.

“Every six months for a steady twelve years on end,” he went on,—­ “then the money suddenly stopped.  Now you understand, don’t you?  You were the babe that was left with me that stormy night; and you’ve been with me ever since.  But you’re not my child.  I don’t know whose child you are!”