"No, I am Mrs. Belswin, that's enough for me at present. But to go on with my story. I heard how my husband had brought our child home to the old country, and leaving her there had returned to New Zealand on business. When this news reached me, I made up my mind at once and came over here. I found out--how, it matters not--that my husband's legal adviser was an old friend of mine, one Alfred Damberton----"
"Hush! not that name here!"
"Ah, I forgot. You are the respectable Mr. Alfred Dombrain now. But it was curious that I should find an old friend in a position so likely to be of use to me."
"Use to you?" groaned Dombrain, savagely.
"Yes; I have seen your advertisement in the paper for a companion for a young lady. Well, I have come to apply for the situation."
"You?"
"Yes. Personally, and not by letter as you suggested in print."
Mr. Dombrain felt that he was in a fix, and therefore lied, with clumsy malignity.
"That advertisement doesn't refer to your daughter."
"Doesn't it?" said Mrs. Belswin sharply. "Then, why refer to my daughter at all just now?"