"Of course you live now only for Guilbert."

How she thanked him in her heart for the things he had left unsaid, those
things which clear-eyed and great-minded folk, high or humble, always
understand. There was no selfish lamenting, no reproaches, none of the
futile banalities of the lover who fails to see that it is no crime for a
woman not to love him. The thing he had said was the thing she most
cared to hear.

"Only for that, Ranulph," she answered.

"When will you claim the child's rights?"

She shook her head sadly. "I do not know," she answered with hesitation.
"I will tell you all about it."

Then she told him of the lost register of St. Michael's, and about the
Reverend Lorenzo Dow, but she said nothing as to why she had kept
silence. She felt that, man though he was, he might divine something of
the truth. In any case he knew that Philip had deserted her.

After a moment he said: "I'll find Mr. Dow if he is alive, and the
register too. Then the boy shall have his rights."

"No, Ranulph," she answered firmly, "it shall be in my own time. I must
keep the child with me. I know not when I shall speak; I am biding my
day. Once I thought I never should speak, but then I did not see all,
did not wholly see my duty towards Guilbert. It is so hard to find what
is wise and just."