o me on the doctor's
telegram, he was pleased with you. He called you in joke his 'little
Frenchman.' He didn't dream it was all truth! And he didn't mind your
being called Max. You'd already been baptized Maxime, after the soldier;
and his wife made just that one condition: that the name should be kept.

"I told Jack I'd always loved the name of Max, so he loved it, too; and
though you had other names given to you--the ones we planned
beforehand--nothing fitted the 'little Frenchman' so well as Max. That's
all the story. At first Anne and I used to be afraid of blackmail,
either from the Delatour woman (who went off at once, before she was
really strong enough to travel) or from the doctor, who hurried her away
as much for his sake as for hers, lest it should be found out by some
neighbour that her boy had been changed for a girl. Luckily for us,
though, people avoided her. They didn't believe she was really married.
But the doctor said she was. And he turned out to be honest. He never
tried to get more money out of me. Neither did the woman. His name was
Paul Lefebre, and the village was Latour. I've never heard anything from
them or about them since Jack and I and you and Anne left the Chateau de
la Tour, when you were six weeks old. I didn't wish to hear. I wanted to
forget, as if it had all been a bad dream. Only Anne's eyes wouldn't let
me. They seemed to know too much. I couldn't help being glad when she
was dead, though she'd been so faithful. But when Jack died in that
dreadful, sudden way, then for the first time I felt remorse--horrible
remorse, for a while.... I thought he was taken from me by God as a
punishment--the one human being I'd ever loved dearly! And I got
insomnia, because his spirit seemed to be near, looking at me, knowing
everything. But the feeling passed. I suppose I'm not deep enough to
feel anything for long. I lived down the remorse. And it was fortunate
for me I had a child; otherwise all but a little money would have gone
to the Reynold Dorans. You've been good to me, Max, and I've liked you
very well. I've tried not to think about the past. But when I did think,
I said to myself that you had nothing to complain of. What a different
life it would have been for you, with your own people. And even as it
is, you needn't give up anything unless you choose. If Jack were alive
I'd never have told, even dying. But he's gone, and I shall be--soon. So
far as I'm concerned I don't care which way yo