"I've got to deliver it," said Larpent, with a hint of doggedness. "And you've got to listen. But you needn't be afraid. It isn't going to make any difference to you. The time has gone for that."
He paused, but Toby sat in silence, her face bent over Betty's fair head. When he spoke again, his eyes had gone back to the quiet sea and the far horizon. There was a hint of pathos about him, albeit his face was grim.
"It may have surprised you to see me in Paris with her," he said. "I'm not the sort of man that runs after—that type of woman. But I went to Rozelle because she was dying, and because once—long ago—she was my wife."
A faint sound came from Toby, but still she did not speak or lift her face.
Larpent went on steadily, unemotionally. "She went wrong—ran away—while I was at sea. She was too young to be left alone. Afterwards—too late—a child was born. She told me the night before she died that the child was mine."
"Good God!" said Toby under her breath.
He went on, grimly monotonous. "I never knew of the child's existence. If I had known, it might have made a difference. But it's too late now. She wanted me to find and protect the child. I promised to do my best. And when I found her, I was to tell her one thing. Rozelle prayed for her child's forgiveness every day."
He ceased to speak, and there fell a silence, long and painful. The tide was turning, and the soft wash of tiny breakers came up the sand. Sea and sky mingled together, opalescent in the misty sunlight. The man's eyes gazed without seeing. Toby's were full of tears.
He turned at last and looked at her, then, moved by what he saw, laid an awkward hand upon her arm.
"I'm not asking anything from you," he said. "But I'd like you to know
I'd have done more—if I'd known."