“But I do not want his help and I won’t accept his help,” she exclaimed, drawing herself up.  “And I won’t see him if he comes!  You must not let me see him!  Promise me you won’t!  And he must not find”—­she hesitated as if unwilling to pronounce the name—­“he must not find Mr. Dalton.  There has been scandal enough.  You do not think he wants to find Mr. Dalton, too, do you, Martha?” she added slowly, as if some new terror were growing on her.

“That’s what Stephen thinks—­find him and kill him.  That’s why he wanted you to listen last night.  That’s why he wants to get you and Mr. Felix together.  Mr. Dalton won’t stay here if he knows Mr. Felix is looking for him.  He’s too big a coward.”

Lady Barbara shivered, drew her gown closer, and sank to the bed again, gazing straight before her.  “Yes, that is what will happen, Martha—­he would kill him.  I see it all now.  That is what would have happened to our gardener who ruined the gatekeeper’s daughter, if the man had not left England.  She was only a girl—­hardly grown; yes, it all comes back to me.  I remember what my husband did.”  She was still speaking under her breath, reciting the story more to herself than to Martha, her voice rising and falling, at times hardly audible.  “Nothing—­happened then—­ because my husband—­did not find the man.”

She faced the nurse again.  “You won’t let him come here, will you, Martha?”

“He’ll come, my lady, if Stephen can get hold of him,” came the positive reply.  “He had a room in a lodging-house not far from here, but he left it, and Stephen doesn’t know where he’s gone.  But he’ll turn up again down at the shop, and then—­”

“But you must not let him come,” she burst out.

Again she sat upright.  “I won’t have it—­please—­ please!  I will go away if you do, where nobody will ever find me.  I could not have him see me—­see me like this.”  She looked at her thin hands and over her shabby gown.  “Not like this!”

“No, you won’t go away, my lady.”  There was a ring of authority now in the nurse’s voice.  “You’ll stay here.  It’s the only way out of this misery for you.  As for Mr. Felix and that scoundrel who has ruined you, Mr. Felix will take care of him.  But I’m going to let Mr. Felix in, if the dear Lord will let him come.  Mr. Felix loves you and—­”

Her body stiffened.  “He never loved me.  He only loved his father,” she cried angrily, and again she sank back on her pillow.  “All my misery came from that.”

Martha bent closer.  “You never got that right, my lady,” she returned firmly.  “You mustn’t get angry with me, for I got to let it all out.”  She was the nurse no longer; no matter what happened, she would unburden her heart.  “Mr. Felix isn’t like other men.  He stood by his father and helped him when he was in trouble, just as he’ll stand by and help you, just as he helps everybody—­Tom Moulton’s daughter for one, that he picked up on the streets