All the time she talked she had been walking to and fro; suddenly she halted before me and said:
“I always said it was a risk bringing you with us, but Bertie thought otherwise, and then your aunt was so frantically urgent, the money was such a temptation, and you were a nice girl, not at all modern, and I hoped and prayed that I would never be found out. I must explain about Colonel Armadale. No doubt, you, like everyone else, thought I flirted with him on board that dreadful old tub. He is a dear old friend and godfather to my elder boy. He meets Bob and his brother whenever he likes, but I, although I am their mother, never. He told me a great deal about them, and that Hugh, the younger, is brilliantly clever; his father is immensely proud of him. The child’s only drawback is that he resembles me! Although I have not seen my boys I have seen my husband. Not very long before I came out he and a lady sat directly behind me in the stalls of a theatre. Another time we met face to face in the street, looked at one another—and passed on.
“Well now, Evie, you will not think too badly of me, will you—perhaps, some day, you may forgive me?”
“I forgive you now,” I said, rising; “indirectly you have done me a very good turn, for in future I am to live with Ronnie. I am really sorry that this has happened to you, and I must tell you that since I came to Silliram I have enjoyed every day of the time we have spent here together.”
“And never for a moment suspected that I had a past?”
“Yes, I did think there was something mysterious about you—you were so reserved about your affairs. I thought you had somehow or other come down in the world, and naturally did not care to talk about it. You always said you were poor—but you had some costly possessions. Your diamonds and your pearls——”
“Those pearls are sham!” she interrupted. “I sold my string for seven hundred pounds, and lived on it for years. Well, Evie, as you are making an early start to-morrow morning, I must not detain you any longer. Will you write to me sometimes?—‘Care of Captain Hayes-Billington, the Katchoocan Mines,’ will always find me, and I shall get so few letters.”
“Yes,” I replied, “I will certainly write.”
“Well then, good-bye, my dear girl. I wish you all happiness, joy and good fortune.”
As she kissed me I felt her tears upon my face, and when I had wrenched open the door and blundered out of the room I was crying too.