“A year went by and I married again, my second wife being Emma Johnson, the daughter of old Johnson, who owned a fleet of fishing boats and a great deal of other property, and lived at the Red House in Bradmouth. Some months after our marriage he died, and we came to live at Monk’s Lodge, which we inherited from him with the rest of his fortune. A while passed, and Emma was born; and it was when her mother was still confined to her room that one evening, as I was walking in front of the house after dinner, I saw a woman coming towards me carrying a fifteen-months’ child in her arms. There was something in this woman’s figure and gait that was familiar to me, and I stood still to watch her pass. She did not pass, however; she came straight up to me and said:—
“‘How are you, George? You ought to know me again, though you won’t know your baby.’
“It was your mother, and, Joan, you were that baby.
“‘I thought that you were dead, Jane,’ I said, so soon as I could speak.
“‘That’s just what I meant you to think, George,’ she answered, ‘for at that time I had a very good chance of marrying out there in New York, and didn’t want you poking about after me, even though you weren’t my lawful husband. Also I couldn’t bear to part with the baby; though it’s yours sure enough, and I’ve been careful to bring its birth papers with me to show you that it is not a fraud; and here they are, made out in your name and mine, or at least in the name that you pretended to marry me under.’ And she gave me this certificate, which, Joan, I now pass on to you.
“‘The fact of the matter is,’ she went on, ‘that when it came to the point I found that I couldn’t marry the other man after all, for in my heart I hated the sight of him and was always thinking of you. So I threw him up and tried to get over it, for I was doing uncommonly well out there, running a lodging-house of my own. But it wasn’t any use: I just thought of you all day and dreamed of you all night, and the end of it was that I sold up the concern and started home. And now if you will marry me respectable so much the better, and if you won’t—well, I must put up with it, and sha’n’t show you any more temper, for I’ve tried to get along without you and I can’t, that’s the fact. You seem to be pretty flourishing, anyway; somebody in the train told me that you had come into a lot of money and bought Monk’s Lodge, so I walked here straight, I was in such a hurry to see you. Why, what’s the matter with you, George? You look like a ghost. Come, give me a kiss and take me into the house. I’ll clear out by-and-by if you wish it.’
“These, Joan, were your mother’s exact words, as she stood there in the moonlight near the roadway, holding you in her arms. I have not forgotten a syllable of them.
“When she finished I was forced to speak. ‘I can’t take you in there,’ I said, because I am married and it is my wife’s house.’ She turned ghastly white, and had I not caught her I think that she would have fallen.
“‘O My God!’ she said, ‘I never thought of this. Well, George, you won’t cast me off for all that, will you? I was your wife before she was, and this is your daughter.’
“Then, Joan, though it nearly choked me, I lied to her again, for what else was I to do? ‘You never were my wife,’ I said, ‘and I’ve got another daughter now. Also all this is your own fault, for had I known that you were alive, I would not have married. You have yourself to thank, Jane, and no one else. Why did you send me that false certificate?’