"I hate to be unjust to her even in my thoughts, but where could she have found a better husband than you, dad?"
"Millionaire indeed!" protested Enid, breaking in with her own tumultuous thoughts. "I would not exchange you for twenty millionaires."
"My methods cannot have been so ill-considered if they have brought me two such daughters," he said, with a mournful smile. "But there! I am only deluding myself into a postponement of a painful duty. My secret must out—to you, at any rate. When I married your mother, Constance, I was an attaché at the British Embassy in Paris. Her maiden name was Madeleine Nanette de Courtray. Her family, notwithstanding the French sound of her name, was almost wholly English. They were Jersey people, recruited from British stock, but two generations of English husbands were compelled to assume the style de Courtray owing to entailed estates on the island. There is something quaint in the idea, as it worked out. The place was only a small farm. When we were married the stipulation lapsed, because it was more advisable for me to retain my own name. I was then the heir to a title I can now claim. I am legally and lawfully Sir Stephen Brand, ninth baronet, of Lesser Hambledon, in Northumberland."
"And you became a lighthouse-keeper!"
It was Enid who found breath for the exclamation. Constance braced herself for that which was to come. That Stephen Brand was a well-born man was not a new thing in their intelligence.
"Yes, a cleaner of lamps and transmitter of ship's signals. Have we been less happy?" A most vehement "No!" was the answer.
"Don't run away with the idea that I was, therefore, endowed with ample means. There are baronets poorer than some crossing-sweepers. The estate was encumbered. During my father's life, during my own until five years ago, it yielded only a thousand a year. Even now, after fifteen years of retrenchment—you both forget that whilst I was stationed at Flamborough Head I was absent for a few days to attend my father's funeral—it produces only a little over three thousand. Enough for us, eh, to enjoy life on? Enough to satisfy Lady Margaret's scruples, Enid, as to her son's absurd notion of matrimony? Enough, too, Constance, to mate you to the man of your choice, whatever his position?"
"Dad," murmured Constance, "is there no hope of the old days coming back again?"
"Who can tell? These things are not in mortal ken. I need hardly say that my allowance of one third of the family revenues was barely sufficient to maintain a junior in the diplomatic service. Yet I married, Heaven help me, in the pursuance of an ideal, only to find my ideal realized, after much suffering, on lonely rocks and bleak headlands. With strict economy, we existed happily until you were born. My wife, at first, was sufficiently delighted to exchange Jersey society for Paris and the distinguished circle in which we moved there. But you were not many months old until a change came. A Frenchman, a rich fop, began to pay her attentions which turned her head. I do not think she meant any harm. People never do mean harm who accomplish it most fatally. I did that which a man who respects himself loathes to do—I protested. There was a scene, tears, and wild reproaches. Next day the crash came. She endeavored to mislead me as to an appointment. God knows I only wished to save her, but it was too much to ask me to pass over in silence the schemes of a libertine, though he, too, was infatuated by her beauty. I discovered them in a clandestine meeting, and—and—my blood was hot and the country was France. We fought next morning, and I killed him."
Constance bent her head and kissed his right hand. Here, at least, was a lineal descendant of nine generations of border raiders, who held their swords of greater worth than musty laws.