that to be able to flaunt them in
the face of argument was indispensable."

"She probably did not know that there existed such documents," the
Duchess said. "Neither of the pair knew anything for the time but that
they were wild with love and were to be torn apart."

"Therefore," he said with distinctness even clearer and harder, "she
must possess indisputable documentary evidence of marriage before the
child is born--as soon as possible."

"Marriage!" she hesitated aghast. "But _who_ will--?"

"I," he answered with absolute rigidity. "It will be difficult. It must
be secret. But if it can be done--when his time comes the child can look
his new world in the face. He will be the Head of the House of Coombe
when it most needs a strong fellow who has no cause to fear anything and
who holds money and power in his hands."

"You propose to suggest that she shall marry _you_?" she put it to him.

"Yes. It will be the devil's own job," he answered. "She has not begun
to think of the child yet--and she has abhorred me all her life. To her
the world means nothing. She does not know what it can do to her and she
would not care if she did. Donal was her world and he is gone. But you
and I know what she does not."

"So this is what you have been thinking?" she said. It was indeed an
unarchaic point of view. But even as she heard him she realised that it
was the almost inevitable outcome--not only of what was at the moment
happening to the threatened and threatening world, but of his singularly
secretive past--of all the things he had hidden and also of all the
things he had professed not to hide but had baffled people with.

"Since the morning Redcliff dropped his bomb I have not been able to
think of much else," he said. "It was a bomb, I own. Neither you nor I
had reason for a shadow of suspicion. My mind has a trick of dragging
back to me a memory of a village girl who was left as--as she is. She
said her lover had married her--but he went away and never came back.
The village she lived in was a few miles from Coombe Keep and she gave
birth to a boy. His childhood must have been a sort of hell. When other
boys had rows with him they used to shout 'Bastard' after him in the
street. He had a shifty, sickened look and when he died of measles at
seven years old no doubt he was glad of it. He used to run crying to his
wretched mother and hide his miserable head in her apron."

"It sounds unendurable," the Duchess said sharply