“I can prove them all right,” she answered sulkily.
“I do not believe you,” Mr Graynor said. “This sort of thing has been tried often enough. It is an audacious lie. I say it is a lie. Give me your proof.”
Bessie Clapp smiled faintly. Her manner was growing more assured; the nervousness which the unexpected sight of him had caused her, was less apparent now.
“You can’t ’ave looked at the boy,” she said, and bent down and removed the cap from the child’s head and turned his face towards the man who questioned the truth of her statement.
Mr Graynor had given only a cursory glance at the child; he looked now more closely, and, staring with dim eyes fierce with passionate anger into the small face, beheld as in the days of his own youth the features of his elder son faithfully reproduced. There could be no dispute as to the likeness. A sickening sense of the truth of the woman’s claim, which before he had not so much doubted as refused to admit, held him dumb. He put his hand before his eyes to shut out the sight of the child’s face; and the little fellow, thoroughly frightened now, began to whimper. His mother held him and hushed his cries.
“You see,” she said, watching Mr Graynor curiously, fascinated and somewhat awed by his evident emotion; “that’s my proof. One ’as only to look at ’im to see who’s ’is father.”
A groan escaped Mr Graynor’s lips. He took his hand from before his eyes, and pushed aside some papers on the table, and rested his arms on it as before.
“How dare you bring him here?” he asked in low shaking tones. “Why do you bring him—now—after all this time? You want money, I suppose?”
Bessie Clapp turned a resentful gaze from him to William, who, furtively watching her, remained with his shoulders hunched dejectedly, scowling malevolently at her, and at the child whose claim upon him she sought to establish.
“’E knows why I came,” she said, indicating William with a brief nod. “I gave ’im ’is chance; but ’e wouldn’t ’elp me. I asked ’im to take the child off my ’ands, and ’e refused. ’E thought the work’ouse good enough for ’is son. But the work’ouse don’t ’elp these cases; and anyway I wouldn’t care for ’im to go there. And I can’t keep ’im no longer I’m going to be married. My man’s joined up, and I’ll draw the separation allowance. But ’e don’t want ’is child.”