governess. Oh! poor Claire, how she suffered! It was, perhaps,
a good thing after all that she died so soon after you were born. Her
heart was broken. She was so innocent; she could not realise that she was
no more than a casual mistress for your father. And then Mrs. Jervaise,
whom you have believed to be your mother, was very unkind to my poor
Claire. Yet it seemed best just then, in her trouble, that she should go
away to Italy, and that it should be pretended that you were Mrs.
Jervaise's true daughter. I arranged that. I have blamed myself since, but
I did not understand at the time that Mrs. Jervaise consented solely that
she might keep you in sight of your father as a reminder of his sin. She
was spiteful, and at that time she had the influence. She threatened a
separation if she was not allowed to have her own way. So! the secret was
kept and there were so few who remember my poor Claire that it is only
Alfred and I who know how like her you are, my dear. She had not, it is
true, your beautiful fair hair that is so striking with your dark eyes.
But your temperament, yes. She, too, was full of spirit, vivacious,
gay--until afterwards."

She paused with a deep sigh, and I think we all sighed with her in
concert. She had held us with her narrative. She had, as a matter of fact,
told us little enough and that rather allusively, but I felt that I knew
the whole history of the unhappy Claire Severac. Anne had not overrated
her mother's powers in this direction. And my sigh had in it an element of
relief. Some strain had been mercifully relaxed.

The sound of Frank's harsh voice came as a gross intrusion on our silence.

"What evidence have you got of all this?" he asked, but the ring of
certainty had gone from his tone.

Mrs. Banks pointed with a superb gesture at his father.

The old man was leaning forward in his chair with his face in his hands.
There was no spirit in him. Probably he was thinking less of the present
company than of Claire Severac.

Frank Jervaise showed his true quality on that occasion. He looked down at
his father with scowling contempt, stared for a moment as if he would
finally wring the old man's soul with some expression of filial scorn, and
then flung himself out of the room, banging the door behind him as a
proclamation that he finally washed his hands of the whole affair.

Old Jervaise looked up when the door banged and rose rather feebly to his
feet. For a moment he looked at Arth