(he had after all to agree to share them with her--he couldn't expect
her to take a present of money from him), he returned to the question
over which they had had their little scene the night they dined
together--on this occasion (he had brought a portmanteau and he was
staying) she mentioned that there was something very particular she
had it on her conscience to tell him before letting him commit
himself. There dawned in her face as she approached the subject a
light of warning that frightened him; it was charged with something
so strange that for an instant he held his breath. This flash of
ugly possibilities passed however, and it was with the gesture of
taking still tenderer possession of her, checked indeed by the grave,
important way she held up a finger, that he answered: "Tell me
everything--tell me!"

"You must know what I am--who I am; you must know especially what I'm
not! There's a name for it, a hideous, cruel name. It's not my
fault! Others have known, I've had to speak of it--it has made a
great difference in my life. Surely you must have guessed!" she went
on, with the thinnest quaver of irony, letting him now take her hand,
which felt as cold as her hard duty. "Don't you see I've no
belongings, no relations, no friends, nothing at all, in all the
world, of my own? I was only a poor girl."

"A poor girl?" Baron was mystified, touched, distressed, piecing
dimly together what she meant, but feeling, in a great surge of pity,
that it was only something more to love her for.

"My mother--my poor mother," said Mrs. Ryves.

She paused with this, and through gathering tears her eyes met his as