"What is strange, Claire?"
"That you have never seen me except on my holidays—that we have never met. What have you done since you have been in London?"
I thought of my walks and tireless quest in Oxford Street with a kind of shame. That old life was severed from the present by whole worlds.
"I have lived very quietly," I answered. "But is it so strange that we have never met?"
She laughed a low and musical laugh, and as the boat drew shoreward and grounded, replied—
"Perhaps not. Come, let us go to mother—Jasper."
O sweet sound from sweetest lips! We stepped ashore, and hand-in-hand entered the room where her mother sat.
As she looked up and saw us standing there together, she knew the truth in a moment. Her blue eyes filled with sudden fear, her worn hand went upwards to her heart. Until that instant she had not known of my presence there that day, and in a flash divined its meaning.
"I feared it," she answered at length, as I told my story and stood waiting for an answer. "I feared it, and for long have been expecting it. Claire, my love, are you sure? Oh, be quite sure before you leave me."
For answer, Claire only knelt and flung her white arms round her mother's neck, and hid her face upon her mother's bosom.