peated it.

"I will do it whether it is difficult or not," she said, "but--" she
actually got up from her ottoman with a quiet soft movement and stood
before them--not a defiant young figure, only simple and elementally
sweet-- "I am not ashamed," she said. "I am not ashamed and _I_ do not
matter at all."

There was that instant written upon Coombe's face--so far at least as
his old friend was concerned--his response to the significance of this.
It was the elemental thing which that which moved him required; it was
what the generations and centuries of the house of Coombe required--a
primitive creature unashamed and with no cowardice or weak vanity
lurking in its being. The Duchess recognised it in the brief moment of
almost breathless silence which followed.

"You are very splendid, child," he said after it, "though you are not at
all conscious of it."

"Sit down again." The Duchess put out a hand which drew Robin still
nearer to her. "Explain to her now," she said.

Robin's light soft body rested against her when it obeyed. It responded
to more than the mere touch of her hand; its yielding was to something
which promised kindness and even comfort--that something which Dowie and
Mademoiselle had given in those days which now seemed to have belonged
to another world. But though she leaned against the Duchess' knee she
still lifted her eyes to Lord Coombe.

"This is what I must ask you to listen to," he said. "We believe what
you have told us but we know that no one else will--without legal proof.
We also know that some form may have been neglected because all was done
in haste and ignorance of formalities. You can give no clue--the
ordinary methods of investigation are in confusion as the whole country
is. This is what remains for us to face. _You_ are not ashamed, but if
you cannot prove legal marriage Donal's son will know bitter
humiliation; he will be robbed of all he should possess--his life will
be ruined. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she answered without moving her eyes from his face. She seemed to
him again as he stood before her in the upper room of Lady Etynge's
house when, in his clear aloof voice, he had told her that he had come
to save her. He had saved her then, but now it was not she who needed
saving.

"There is only one man who can give Donal's child what his father would
have given him," he went on.

"Who is he?" she asked.

"I am the man," he answered, and he stood quite still.

"How--c