"I want to talk to you about—me," said Robin. She sat straight in her chair, her hands clasped on her knee. "Do you know about—me, Dowie?" she asked.
"Yes, my dear," Dowie answered.
"Tell me what Lord Coombe told you."
Dowie put down her sewing because she was afraid her hands would tremble when she tried to find the proper phrase in which to tell as briefly as she could the extraordinary story.
"He said that you were married to a young gentleman who was killed at the Front—and that because you were both so young and hurried and upset you perhaps hadn't done things as regular as you thought. And that you hadn't the papers you ought to have for proof. And it might take too much time to search for them now. And—and—Oh, my love, he's a good man, for all you've hated him so! He won't let a child be born with shame to blight it. And he's given you and it—poor helpless innocent—his own name, God bless him!"
Robin sat still and straight, with clasped hands on her knee, and her eyes more lost than before, as she questioned Dowie remorselessly. There was something she must know.
"He said—and the Duchess said—that no one would believe me if I told them I was married. Do you believe me, Dowie? Would Mademoiselle believe me—if she is alive—for Oh! I believe she is dead! Would you both believe me?"
Dowie's work fell upon the rug and she held out both her comfortable nursing arms, choking:
"Come here, my lamb," she cried out, with suddenly streaming eyes. "Come and sit on your old Dowie's knee like you used to do in the nursery."
"You do believe me—you do!" As she had looked in the nursery days—the Robin who left her chair and was swept into the well known embrace—looked now. She hid her face on Dowie's shoulder and clung to her with shaking hands.