world--remote and all alone enough for words not to
be sounds too terrible to hear even as they were spoken?

"Oh! dear Lord," Dowie prayed, "help her to ease her poor, timid young
heart that's so crushed with cruel weight."

"You must go to bed early, my dear," she said at length. "But why don't
you get a book and read?"

The lost eyes left the fire and met hers.

"I want to talk," Robin said. "I want to ask you things."

"I'll tell you anything you want to know," answered Dowie. "You're only
a child and you need an older woman to talk to."

"I want to talk to you about--_me_," said Robin. She sat straight in her
chair, her hands clasped on her knee. "Do you know about--me, Dowie?"
she asked.

"Yes, my dear," Dowie answered.

"Tell me what Lord Coombe told you."

Dowie put down her sewing because she was afraid her hands would tremble
when she tried to find the proper phrase in which to tell as briefly as
she could the extraordinary story.

"He said that you were married to a young gentleman who was killed at
the Front--and that because you were both so young and hurried and upset
you perhaps hadn't done things as regular as you thought. And that you
hadn't the papers you ought to have for proof. And it might take too
much time to search for them now. And--and--Oh, my love, he's a good
man, for all you've hated him so! He won't let a child be born with
shame to blight it. And he's given you and it--poor helpless
innocent--his own name, God bless him!"

Robin sat still and straight, with clasped hands on her knee, and her
eyes more lost than before, as she questioned Dowie remorselessly. There
was something she must know.

"He said--and the Duchess said--that no one would believe me if I told
them I was married. Do _you_ believe me, Dowie? Would Mademoiselle
believe me--if she is alive--for Oh! I believe she is dead! Would you
_both_ believe me?"

Dowie's work fell upon the rug and she held out both her comfortable
nursing arms, choking:

"Come here, my lamb," she cried out, with suddenly streaming eyes. "Come
and sit on your old Dowie's knee like you used to do in the nursery."

"You _do_ believe me--you _do_!" As she had looked in the nursery
days--the Robin who left her chair and was swept into the well known
embrace--looked now. She hid her face on Dowie's shoulder and clung to
her with shaking hands.

"I prayed to Jesus Christ that you would believe me, Dowie!" she cried.
"And that Mademoiselle