"What right has he or anybody else to meddle with my affairs?" Lucy retorted in an indignant tone.
"Because he cannot help it. I intended to keep the news from you for a time, but from what you have just told me you had best hear it now. Barton Holt is alive. He has been in Brazil all these years, in the mines. He has written to his father that he is coming home."
All the color faded from Lucy's cheeks.
"Bart! Alive! Coming home! When?"
"He will be here day after to-morrow; he is at Amboy, and will come by the weekly packet. What I can do I will. I have worked all my life to save you, and I may yet, but it seems now as if I had reached the end of my rope."
"Who said so? Where did you hear it? It CAN'T be true!"
Jane shook her head. "I wish it was not true—but it is—every word of it. I have read his letter."
Lucy sank back in her chair, her cheeks livid, a cold perspiration moistening her forehead. Little lines that Jane had never noticed began to gather about the corners of her mouth; her eyes were wide open, with a strained, staring expression. What she saw was Max's eyes looking into her own, that same cold, cynical expression on his face she had sometimes seen when speaking of other women he had known.
"What's he coming for?" Her voice was thick and barely audible.
"To claim his son."