“I ran away,” she went on pitifully. “I couldn’t bear to be asked anything. I thought perhaps no one would ever know. I thought it would be so much easier if they didn’t.... I got back to the cottage and packed a few things.... All the people were out at—at the place. We had given them an assumed name. I thought they’d never know who we were.... Of course, afterwards they knew about Philippe, I suppose, when he was identified. I saw in the papers that letters were found on him.... Someone went there, a friend of his. I’ve forgotten the name....”
“I went,” said Barnabas. “It is strange that there was no mention of you. I suppose the people at the rooms where you stayed wished to keep out of being questioned, so did not come forward. However, that’s no matter now.”
“I left money to pay for our lodging,” went on Sybil, “and just ran away. I walked a long distance to another little station and took a train to Hereford. From there I went to London. I got there in the early morning. I waited about in the station till nearly lunch-time. Then I drove to Cecily’s flat. I had sent my luggage—at least most of it—to her from Andover. I’d only taken a little box and a handbag to Wales. I left the box behind at the rooms. There was nothing in it that could betray my name. I took the handbag away with me. When I saw Cecily I just said that the tour had ended unexpectedly, and that I hadn’t been well. I stayed with her a week. That week and the three weeks in Wales just made up the month I was supposed to be with her. Then I went home....
“It’s no use trying to explain what I thought, nor how wretched I was. I don’t think I quite knew myself. It didn’t seem I who was acting, but just something or somebody outside myself. If I really thought of anything it was only that I could never face my parents’ anger. So all the time I was planning and thinking how best to behave that they should never know. It sounds dreadful now, but then it didn’t seem fair that I should only have three weeks’ happiness, and for that bear the whole brunt of their anger alone. I soon found that I need not fear them guessing. They never suspected that I had not been with Cecily the whole time.... As the weeks passed I began to think myself that everything that had happened had been a dream.... It wasn’t exactly that I forgot Philippe, only I tried to pretend it had never been a reality.... And then all at once I realized that it wasn’t a dream ... that it never had been ... and no amount of thinking could turn it into one.... I used to pass whole nights of terror wondering what I could do.... If I had only told my parents at once it would have been so much easier.... Even though they would have been terribly angry, at least I was married to Philippe.... But now I felt I could never tell them....
“At last I thought of Cecily. I wrote to ask her to let me stay with her. I went; and then I told her everything.... Cecily was very good to me. She begged and implored me to tell my people, but I wouldn’t, and I cried so much she thought I’d be ill, and at last she promised to help me and do everything I wanted.... We went over to France. My father was quite willing for me to travel about with Cecily, and kept me well supplied with money. We were in France moving about in different places the whole winter. In March we took rooms at St. Germain.... It—it was there the child was born.... I wouldn’t see it.... I didn’t even want to know if it were a boy or a girl ... but Cecily would tell me. She had it christened Philippa.... I didn’t want to see it because I didn’t want to get fond of it. The nurse thought it was just queerness on my part because I was so weak. Cecily arranged everything. Just after the nurse left, and when I was well enough to travel, she took the baby away.... I was so glad when it went. Its crying always reminded me that it was there. It made me remember, and I wanted so dreadfully to forget....
“When Cecily came back to me alone I told her we’d never speak of it again.... We never have.... I sent her money.... My father always gave me a good dress allowance. Out of that I paid for the child.... I wanted it to be in France. I couldn’t bear to think of it speaking with a common English accent....”
Barnabas, who had been looking on the ground during most of the recital, now looked up quickly. What an extraordinary anomaly the woman was. She could banish from her mind all memory of the man she had loved, she could forsake the child he had given her, and yet she could not bear the thought of its learning to speak with a common accent.
“Have you,” asked Miss Mason, “any idea where the child was left?”
“In Paris,” said Sybil quickly. “Cecily told me the name of the woman when she came back. I didn’t want to know, but I wasn’t able to stop her. It was Madame Barbin.”
Miss Mason sighed. “Then,” she said, “there is no question but that the child who came to my studio last December is your daughter.”