"It is getting late, but you must hear all I have to tell before we can decide upon the next step. Will you listen to me? I shall not bore you. It is a long story. First let me clear the ground a little. I must disabuse your mind on one point. I am not Lady Blackadder—no, no, do not misunderstand me—not on account of the divorce, but I never was Lady Blackadder. She was Henriette Standish. I am Claire, her sister Claire."
"What a fool I've been!" I cried. "I might have guessed."
"How should you? But let me go on. I shall never forget that detestable trial, those awful days in the Divorce Court, when the lawyers fought and wrangled over my darling sister, like dogs over a bone, tearing and snarling at each other, while the judge sat above like a solemn old owl, never moving or making a sign.
"Henriette positively refused to appear in the case, although she was pressed and entreated by her legal advisers. She could have thrown so much light on the worst and darkest part. She could have repudiated the cowardly charges made, and cast back the lies drawn round her to ruin her. If the jury had but seen her pretty, pathetic face, and heard from her own sweet lips all she had endured, they would have come to a very different verdict.
"But she would not come forward on her own behalf. She would not defend the action; she did not want to win it, but waited till it was all over, hiding herself away in a far-off corner of the Apennines, where I was to join her with the child, little Ralph.
"There had been no question of that; the possibility of her losing it had never been raised, or she would have nerved herself to fight sooner than give up what she valued more than her very life.
"It fell upon me with crushing effect, although towards the end of the trial I had had my forebodings. Lord Blackadder was to have the custody of his heir, and my dear sweet Henriette was to be robbed for ever of her chiefest joy and treasure. The infant child was to be abandoned to strangers, paid by its unnatural and unfeeling father.
"I had braced myself to listen to all that came out in court, a whole tissue of lies told by perjured wretches whose evidence was accepted as gospel—one of them was the same Falfani whom you know, and who had acted the loathsome part of spy on several occasions.
"Directly the judge had issued his cruel fiat, I slipped out, hurried down-stairs into the Strand, jumped into a hansom, and was driven at top speed to Hamilton Terrace, bent upon giving instant effect to a scheme I had long since devised.
"I found my faithful Philpotts awaiting me with everything prepared as I had arranged. The dear baby was dressed quickly—he was as good as gold—the baggage, enough for my hurried journey to Fuentellato, had been packed for days past, and we took the road.