n the
child you had saved. I thought Fate had interfered forcibly, and had
given it into your keeping instead of mine. At the moment it seemed to
me a direct interposition of Providence, and a sign that my father's
inheritance was not intended to be lost to me after all. Before me stood
a great choice--the good of my sister's little one, or my own--and I
chose my own. The sequel proved easy--only too easy. I said the baby I
had seen at the inn was not my niece, and nobody doubted my word. My
brother-in-law and the ayah were already on their way to India, Mrs.
Burke was dead, and no one else was likely to raise the question of
identity. The portrait circulated in the newspapers was such a poor
snapshot that neither my nurse nor any of Mr. Clarke's relations
recognized it. They had not known the child intimately; they had only
seen her once or twice in her ayah's arms. Before I left the Red Lion at
Greenfield I ascertained your name--I scarcely knew why; it seemed an
instinct at the moment. I wished to forget it, but it remained all the
same--one of those things which it is impossible to wine from one's
remembrance.

"Years went by, years of prosperity, for in trust for Alison I was a
rich woman. I tried to banish all thoughts of Rosamond, and to justify
my action to myself, yet in my inmost heart I knew I had sinned. For
some time I lived in the Midlands, but Leamstead did not suit my little
girl's health, so I removed to Latchworth. When Alison started to go to
the College and I first saw Dorothy in the train, I was immediately
struck with her appearance. I could not think of whom she reminded me;
her eyes haunted me continually. One day I came home and found that she
had been at our house in my absence, and that Alison was full of her
resemblance to the portrait of my sister Madeleine which hung in the
drawing room. Then I knew, even without the extra links that made the
connection only too plain--the story of her adoption, which Alison had
heard at school; the very name of Dorothy Greenfield, and your name,
which I had not succeeded in forgetting. Alarmed at the recognition, I
forbade Alison to invite her again, and in every way in my power
discouraged the acquaintance between the two girls. I thought of
removing from Latchworth, but I had taken my house on a lease and spent
much on improving it. Everything appeared to conspire against me: first
Alison's extreme affection for Dorothy, then our meeting at the Hydro.,