‘That—that—you have a white infant at the bungalow. Is it true?’

‘You can see for yourself that it is true! What then?’

‘Whose child is it? Where does it come from?’ he asked, in a nervous voice, for he fully believed that, being alone, she would confide the secret of Maraquita’s shame to him.

But she was silent.

‘Why will you not tell me?’ he continued, more boldly; ‘it is impossible but that you must know. You cannot be sheltering a child of whose origin you are not aware.’

‘Why should it be impossible?’ she answered; ‘might I not have found it, or adopted it?’

‘Nonsense!’ he rejoined impatiently; ‘where did you find it then?’

Again she was silent.

‘Lizzie! I resent this want of confidence between us. Considering how we stand to one another, I have a right to ask you whose child that is. Do you know what Rosa thinks and says about it?’

‘It is nothing to me,’ returned Lizzie proudly, ‘what Rosa may think or say.’