'The only barrier I knew of was no "invention." If you had ever known my father——'
'Oh, the echoes! the echoes!' She lay back in the chair. 'How often you used to say, if I "knew your father." But you said, too'—her voice sank—'you called the greatest "barrier" by another name.'
'What name?'
So low that even he could hardly hear she answered, 'The child that was to come.'
'That was before my father died,' Stonor returned hastily, 'while I still hoped to get his consent.'
She nodded, and her eyes were set like wide doors for memory to enter in.
'How the thought of that all-powerful personage used to terrorize me! What chance had a little unborn child against "the last of the great feudal lords," as you called him?'
'You know the child would have stood between you and me.'
'I know the child did stand between you and me.'
He stared at her. With vague uneasiness he repeated, 'Did stand——'