u choose: whether you
write to Doctor Lefebre or not. Only for the sake of the name--Jack's
name--don't let there be a scandal if you decide to try and find the
girl. Maybe you can't find her. She may be dead. Then it needn't go
against your conscience to let things stay as they are. The Reynold
Dorans have heaps of money."

"That isn't the question exactly," said Max. "Whatever happens, I
haven't the right--but never mind.... I don't want to trouble you, God
knows. I can see partly how you must have felt about the baby, and about
fath--I mean, about the whole thing. It isn't for me to blame--I--thank
you for telling me. Somehow I must manage--to make things straight,
without injuring fath--without injuring the name." His voice broke a
little. John Doran had died under an operation when Max was ten, but he
had adored his father, and still adored his memory. There had been great
love between the big, quiet sportsman and the mercurial, hot-headed,
enthusiastic little boy whom Jack Doran had spoiled and called "Frenchy"
for a pet name. After more than fourteen years, he could hear the kind
voice now, clearly as ever. "Hullo, Frenchy! how are things with you
to-day?" used to be the morning greeting.

How were things with him to-day?...

Max had heard the story with a stolidity which seemed to himself
extraordinary; for excepting the shiver of physical pain which shook him
at each sigh of suffering from under the veil, he had felt nothing,
absolutely nothing, until the voice of dead Jack Doran seemed to call to
him out of darkness.

"He wasn't my father," came the stabbing reminder; but the love which
had been could never be taken away. "I must do what you would want me to
do," Max answered the call. In his heart he knew what that thing was. He
must give everything up. He ought to look for the girl and for his own
parents, if they lived. The daughter of John Doran must have what was
hers.

As he thought this, Rose spoke again, more slowly now, since the story
was told, and there was no longer any haste. "Remember, nobody knows yet
but you and me, Max," she said. "Not even Edwin Reeves. All he knows is
that I had something to say to you. If he tried to guess what it was, he
must have guessed something very different from this. Why not find out
where _she_ is, if you can, and somehow contrive to give her money or
send it anonymously--enough to make her rich; and let the rest go as it
is? I told you just now that I didn't