“That child,” cried he, in a shaking voice, a voice full not only of anger but of fear. “Whose is it?”
She looked from the one man to the other, stammered, and turned furiously upon the younger.
“Lâche!” cried she in a hoarse voice, “it is you who have done this. I know it. What business was it of yours to come here making mischief?”
And she stood with her hand to her heart, panting with fear and rage.
“Whose is this child?” repeated old Mr Bayre, furiously. “It is not mine.”
He shook her roughly by the arm as he spoke.
But his anger woke an answering spirit in the girl. Drawing herself away from him, she stood at bay. And frowning up at him from under her thick eyebrows, with a look which changed her rather handsome face into one hideous and repellent, she hissed out, in a menacing tone,—
“Yours? No. Of course I know that.”
Old Mr Bayre paused an instant. Then he made a sort of spring at her, and asked, in a low voice,—
“What has become of the other—of mine?”