Innocent's eyes were indeed full of something like positive terror. Her heart beat violently—she felt a strange dread, and a foreboding that chilled her very blood.
"People often do that kind of thing—fall in love and run away," continued Lady Blythe, placidly—"when they are young and silly. It is quite a delightful sensation, of course, but it doesn't last. They don't know the world—and they never calculate results. However, we had quite a good time together. We went to Devon and Cornwall, and he painted pictures and made love to me—and it was all very nice and pretty. Then, of course, trouble came, and we had to get out of it as best we could—we were both tired of each other and quarrelled dreadfully, so we decided to give each other up. Only you were in the way!"
Innocent rose, steadying herself with one hand against the table.
"I!" she exclaimed, with a kind of sob in her throat.
"Yes—you! Dear me,—how you stare! Don't you understand? I suppose you've lived such a strange sort of hermit life down here that you know nothing. You were in the way—you, the baby!"
"Do you mean—?"
"Yes—I mean what you ought to have guessed at once—if you were not as stupid as an owl! I've told you I ran away with a man—I wouldn't marry him, though he asked me to—I should have been tied up for life, and I didn't want that—so we decided to separate. And he undertook to get rid of the baby—"
"Me!" cried Innocent, wildly—"oh, dear God! It was me!"
"Yes—it was you—but you needn't be tragic about it!" said Lady Blythe, calmly—"I think, on the whole, you were fortunately placed—and I was told where you were—"
"You were told?—oh, you were told!—and you never came! And you—you are—my MOTHER!"—and overpowered by the shock of emotion, the girl sank back on her chair, and burying her head in her hands, sobbed bitterly. Lady Blythe looked at her in meditative silence.