“He wanted to help us,” protested Lisa; “he blamed himself so much for——”
She stopped, coloured, and then grew pale. It was evident to her now that Vansittart’s wife had been told nothing, and she, Lisa, had been on the point of betraying him.
“For what? Why did he blame himself?”
“Did I say ‘blame’? I use wrong words sometimes,” she said, quick to recover herself. “I hardly know your language. He pitied us: that is what I meant to say. He pitied us because we were alone and poor—two helpless women.”
“And the father of your child, where was he?” Eve asked sternly, only half convinced. “Why did not he help you?”
Paolo had grown tired of his book, and had gone back to his mother’s knee. He stood half hidden in Lisa’s gown, looking earnestly at the stranger, his infantile mind puzzled at the tone and manner of the two women, feeling dimly that there was a tempest in the atmosphere, feeling it as the birds feel when they twitter apprehensively before the coming of the thunder. Inquisitive as well as alarmed, and bold in his wonder, he went over to Eve, and took hold of her gown, and looked up in her face.
She looked down at him, and it was her turn to wonder.
Of whom did the face remind her? He was like his mother; but it was not her face he recalled to Eve. Nor was it Vansittart’s face, though she tried, shrinkingly, to trace a resemblance there, looking for something she hoped not to see. No, the face recalled some other face, and the likeness, faint and indefinable as it was, thrilled her with a tremulous awe, as if she had seen a ghost.
“You had a claim upon this child’s father,” said Eve, her hand lightly touching the boy’s head, and then shrinking away as from pollution; “the strongest possible claim, for he ought to have been your husband. Why did not he help you?”
“Because he was in his grave,” said Lisa; and again the ready tears gushed out.