"Yes, it does. Still, I feel sure she was speaking the truth. Why,
indeed, should she not do so? It seems that Byrne has married again, and
that his wife has already three daughters of her own; so, as she says, he
would probably be glad enough to get the fourth one off his hands, as
they are not well off."

"Yes," said Gimblet. "I knew that. No, there seems no reason why Sir
Arthur Byrne should not have told her about you if he knew she was your
child. What is odd, is that he should not have known it."

"He had promised his first wife not to make any inquiries, it seems,"
said Lord Ashiel.

"Well, he is an uncommon kind of man if he kept that promise,"
Gimblet remarked.

"He was devoted to his first wife, this girl told me," said Lord Ashiel.
"You never knew Lena Meredith, Gimblet, or you would not be surprised
that people kept their promises to her. She was my wife's friend, as I
told you, and I only saw her once, but I don't think I shall ever forget
her. It was just after my wife's death, and I was too heart-broken to
take much notice of anyone, but she was the sort of woman who sticks in
your memory, and I can quite understand a man being infatuated about her,
even to the point of curbing his curiosity for a lifetime on any subject
she wished him to leave alone. I went to see her, you know, about the
baby. I remember, as if it was yesterday, how I told her the whole story.
I told her how I had met Juliana two years before, and how, from the
first, we had both known we should never care for anyone else. I told her
about my old grandfather, from whom I had such great expectations, and
who wouldn't hear of my marrying anyone except the cousin, still in the