But outside the door Cynthia huddled in the great chair with her ear to the door, listened with a growing terror. She had never doubted until this hour that she was the daughter of Robert Daventry's brother. She had been secure in that belief. Now the security was going. She clutched the arms of her chair, feeling the whole world slipping from beneath her feet--even as it had slipped at Valparaiso. For certain memories, quite clear in her mind, were being explained to her. An open hill-side at night, a strange red light upon the world, the crash of houses, little flames creeping, and ships quietly at anchor on the smoothest of seas--that was one picture in her memories which had often puzzled her, which would puzzle her no longer if she believed the story which was being told on the other side of the door. She remembered, too, a long journey amongst mountains, and a bridge over a deep and narrow torrent, and many people with kind faces who spoke to her.
"Of course, it isn't certain," she pleaded to herself desperately; and the husky voice behind the door began again:
"I travelled down to Buenos Ayres by train. I had little money, and no prospects, and a child on my hands. I couldn't make a home for her. So I went straight to the foundling hospital. It stands back in a garden, and is kept by some wealthy sisters. There's a turnstile in the brick wall of the garden, a little iron turnstile--but you know it well, both of you;" and he broke off with a laugh.
Inside the study Joan and Robert Daventry, still remained unconvinced. Outside Cynthia was persuaded.
"It's true then," she whispered to herself. "It's quite true;" and she wrung her hands in the darkness, and her voice broke in a sob. She had no longer any shadow of doubt. The turnstile in the brick wall was for her the overwhelming proof.
Examined in a court of law by the rules of evidence, it might seem flimsy enough. To Cynthia, it was complete corroboration of the testimony of her memories. The turnstile in the brick wall--the one ugly thing in her imagined wonderland of heroes--the turnstile which had always been there before the land was--how had it come there, she asked herself? And she was in no doubt as to the answer. The turnstile was a memory too. It was the turnstile of a foundling hospital, where her father had left her and gone his way. No wonder, she reflected bitterly, it was the one ugly thing in her world of fancies.
She leaned back, shivering, with her hands covering her face. She was humiliated, but she was still more terrified. Shame cut deep, but fear touched the very nerves of her heart. The man who had this morning rushed at her was her father, and she remembered the malice of his smile, and the evil, covetous look of him as he appraised her. She grew hot, now, as she thought upon it.
"What harm does he mean?" she asked; and suddenly she sat forward on the edge of her chair, quivering from head to foot like a spring some touch had released. For her father's voice rose again:
"I tied a bootlace round the child's arm. I can't say that I ever thought to come back for her. But there's a convention in these things, isn't there?" he added with a grin. "I have been a conservative all my life, and now I have found the advantage of it."
"How?" asked Joan. "Even if your story were true, your daughter wouldn't be wearing a bootlace or even the mark of it round her arm now."