"Are you sure that my father was drowned?" demanded Dora doubtfully.
"I am coming to that," said Lady Burville impatiently. "He was said to be drowned; and after a year of mourning I married Dargill."
"You married Julian Edermont?"
"Yes; what else could I do? I was comparatively poor; I had no friends to speak of. Dargill was rich, so I married him. We were quite happy, he and I, and he was very fond of you, my dear."
"Oh! I was born then?" said Dora, rather naïvely, it must be confessed.
"Certainly. Don't I tell you I married Dargill a year after your father died--eighteen months after my first marriage? Well, we were happy; and then your father returned. He also had been saved by some natives, who detained him on the Gold Coast. He managed to escape, and returned to England. Of course, he sought me out at Christchurch; and then, my dear," added Lady Burville impressively, "there was trouble."
"Between my father and Mr. Dargill, alias Edermont?"
"Yes. Dargill was away at the time, and they never met. He was a coward, you know, my dear, and afraid of your father's violent temper--and he had a violent temper, truly awful. Dargill fled to America. George Carew followed him. Then Dargill escaped him in San Francisco, and returned to England. He wrote to me from London, and offered me an annuity if I would let him take you away."
"And you did," said Dora reproachfully.
"What could I do?" said her mother fretfully. "I was poor without Dargill's money. I could hardly keep you alive, and Carew had left me in his search for Dargill. I accepted the annuity and let you go. Then Dargill disappeared, and I never heard of him again till I saw him in Chillum Church."