scandalous, gossiping little place this is,--and it was better to
say at once the baby was mine than leave it to the neighbours to
say the same thing and that I wouldn't acknowledge it. Not a soul
about here would have believed the true story if I had told it to
them. I've done everything for the best--I know I have. And
there'll never be a word said if you marry Robin."

Her face had grown very white. She put up her hand to her head and
her fingers touched the faded wreath of wild roses. She drew it
off and let it drop to the ground.

"I shall never marry Robin!" she said, with quiet firmness--"And I
will not be considered your illegitimate child any longer. It's
cruel of you to have made me live on a lie!--yes, cruel!--though
you've been so kind in other things. You don't know who my parents
were--you've no right to think they were not honest!"

He stared at her amazed. For the first time in eighteen years he
began to see the folly of what he had thought his own special
wisdom. This girl, with her pale sad face and steadfast eyes,
confronted him with the calm reproachful air of an accusing angel.

"What right have you?" she went on. "The man who brought me to
you,--poor wretched me!--if he was my father, may have been good
and true. He said I was motherless; and he, or someone else, sent
you money for me till I was twelve. That did not look as if I was
forgotten. Now you say the money has stopped--well!--my father may
be dead." Her lips quivered and a few tears rolled down her
cheeks. "But there is nothing in all this that should make you
think me basely born,--nothing that should have persuaded you to