“You ordered them to be destroyed?” she cried in sudden comprehension.
“I must decline to answer that question.”
She gave him a curious, incredulous smile and then abruptly returned to her charge.
“When my sister came home, degraded, I was nine years of age, but I was not so young that I did not know that a dreadful thing had happened to her. She was blighted beyond all hope of recovery. It was to me, little me, that she told her story over and over again, and it was I to whom she read all of the pitiful letters she wrote to you. My father wanted to come to America to kill you. He did come later on to plead with you and to kill you if you would not listen to him. But you had gone—to Africa, they said. I could not understand why you would not give to her that little baby boy. He was hers, and———”
She stopped short in her recital and covered her eyes with her hands. He waited for her to go on, sitting as rigid as the image that faced him from beyond the table's end.
“Afterward my father and my uncles made every effort to get the child away from you, but he was hidden; you know how carefully he was hidden so that she might never find him. For ten years they searched for him, and you. For ten years she wrote to you, begging you to let her have him, if only for a little while at a time. She promised to restore him to you. You never replied. You scorned her. We were rich, very rich. But our money was of no help to us in the search for her boy. You had secreted him too well. At last, one day, she told me what it was that you accused her of doing. She told me about Guido Feverelli, her music-master. I knew him, James. He had known her from childhood. He was one of the finest men I have ever seen.”
“He was in love with her,” grated Brood.
“Perhaps. Who knows? But if so, he never uttered so much as one word of love to her. He challenged you. Why did you refuse to fight him?”
“Because she begged me not to kill him. Did she tell you that?”
“Yes. But that was not the real reason. It was because you were not sure of your ground.”