refusal to hear it out. "And," added Darrell, "the man, finding it thus
impossible to dupe my reason, had the inconceivable meanness to apply to
me for alms. I could not better show the disdain in which I held himself
and his story than in recognising his plea as a mendicant. I threw my
purse at his feet, and so left him.

"But," continued Darrell, his brow growing darker and darker--"but wild
and monstrous as the story was, still the idea that it MIGHT be true--a
supposition which derived its sole strength from the character of Jasper
Losely--from the interest he had in the supposed death of a child
that alone stood between himself and the money he longed to grasp--an
interest which ceased when the money itself was gone, or rather changed
into the counter-interest of proving a life that, he thought, would
re-establish a hold on me--still, I say, an idea that the story might
be true would force itself on my fears, and if so, though my resolution
never to acknowledge the child of Jasper Losely as a representative, or
even as a daughter, of my house, would of course be immovable--yet
it would become my duty to see that her infancy was sheltered, her
childhood reared, her youth guarded, her existence amply provided for."

"Right--your plain duty," said Alban bluntly. "Intricate sometimes are
the obligations imposed on us as gentlemen; 'noblesse oblige' is a
motto which involves puzzles for a casuist; but our duties as men are
plain--the idea very properly haunted you--and--"

"And I hastened to exorcise the spectre. I left England--I went to the
French town in which poor Matilda died--I could not, of course, make
formal or avowed inquiries of a nature to raise into importance the very
conspiracy (if conspiracy there were) which threatened me. But I saw
the physician who had attended both my daughter and her child--I sought
those who had seen them both when living--seen them both when dead.
The doubt on my mind was dispelled--not a pretext left for my own
self-torment. The only person needful in evidence whom I failed to see
was the nurse to whom the infant had been sent. She lived in a village
some miles from the town--I called at her house--she was out. I left
word I should call the next day--I did so--she had absconded. I might,
doubtless, have traced her, but to what end if she were merely Jasper's
minion and tool? Did not her very flight prove her guilt and her terror?
Indirectly I inquired into her antecedents and c