"All this I told Mrs. Meredith, and a great deal besides, for I was still in the first violence of bitter, self-reproachful grief. I wanted to be rid of the child, the cause of the catastrophe, whom I hated as vehemently as I had loved its mother, and I begged Mrs. Meredith to help me to dispose of it in such a fashion that, to me at least, the little one should be to all intents and purposes as dead as she was. Babies, I knew, had not a very strong hold on life, and I hoped, as a matter of fact, that it might really die, but this I did not dare to say aloud. Mrs. Meredith was kind to me. I remember well how good and sympathetic she was. She had heard most of the story from Juliana, whose friend she was, and it was at her house that the child was born. We had confided in no one else. She sat silently for a while after I had finished what I had to say, till at last she turned to me and tried to persuade me to alter my intention of disowning the baby. But I repeated doggedly that unless she had some alternative way to suggest of getting rid of it, I meant to leave the little girl at the door of one of the foundling hospitals, and that I would take her that very night.
"At length, seeing that I was resolved, she said she thought she could manage better than that. She had a friend, she said, an elderly Russian lady, who was a widow and childless. This lady was anxious to adopt a little English girl, and had lately written to ask her to find her a baby whom she could bring up as her own child. There was no reason why Juliana's baby should not be the one. She would write at once and suggest it. I was greatly relieved at this idea. Although I had been determined to do as I proposed, whatever opposition I might meet with, my conscience had not been willing to let me leave my child on a doorstep without protesting, and, little though I heeded its condemnation, I was glad to be able to get my own way and at the same time to silence the voice of my inward critic.
"The plan seemed simplicity itself. My wife, as I have told you, had no parents living. Her brothers and sisters, who were all married and living in different parts of the country, had been led to believe that her death was the result of an accident. Mrs. Meredith had even managed to prevail on the doctor to lend himself to this fiction; for, my grandfather being yet alive, there was still every reason not to declare our marriage, while there seemed to be none in favour of doing so, and I shrank from the questionings and scenes which publicity now would not fail to bring upon me. Before I left Mrs. Meredith we had agreed that she should at once communicate with her Russian friend, whose name I refused to let her tell me.
"I have told you before to-day, Gimblet, of all that has happened since. How I took passionately to books as a refuge from my sorrow; how, at my grandfather's suggestion, I had been by way of working for the Diplomatic Service; of how I now worked in good earnest, and in course of time, and after my grandfather's death, found myself attached to our embassy at Petersburg. During the two years I spent there I made the acquaintance of Countess Romaninov. One day when I was talking to her she happened to mention that she had once known an English lady, Mrs. Meredith, and I came to the conclusion that the little girl who lived with her must be none other than my own child. As you know, I could not stand living in the same town as she did, and for that, and for other reasons, I left the Diplomatic Service and returned to England, where I have lived a quiet life on my place in Scotland ever since. Eight years ago, as you know, I married for the second time, and after a few years of comparative happiness, found myself again a widower, my second wife and her child dying within a few months of each other, when my boy was only four years old.
"It is more than a year, now," continued Lord Ashiel, after a pause, "since the girl Julia Romaninov came to my sister in London, with a letter of introduction from our ambassador in Russia. It was not until my sister invited her down to Scotland that I heard anything about her. Not, in fact, till the day before she arrived, for I always tell my sister to ask any girls she pleases to Inverashiel, and she very seldom bothers me about it. You can imagine my feelings when I heard that Julia Romaninov was expected within a few hours, and had indeed already started from London. It was too late to try and stop her, and my first impulse was flight. But on second thoughts I changed my mind, and stayed. Time had dulled the feelings with which I had contemplated her share in the tragedy that attended her birth, and I was not without a certain curiosity to see this young creature for whose existence I was responsible.
"I waited; she came; she stayed six weeks. You know the result. My sister liked her; my nephews, my other guests, every one, except myself, was charmed with her. And I, for some reason, could never stand the girl. I told myself over and over again that it was mere prejudice; the remains of the violent opposition I felt towards her when she was unknown to me; a survival, unconscious and unwilling, of the hatred I had allowed myself to nourish for the baby of a day old, which had made it impossible that she and I should inhabit the same town when she was no more than a child in pinafores. But I could not reason myself out of my dislike, and it culminated a few weeks ago when I found that my sister was anxious to have her with us in the North again this autumn. As you remember, I came to you, and told you the facts. I made you understand how repulsive it was to me to think that this girl might be my child, and begged you to sift the matter as far as was possible, and to find out if there were not a chance that I was mistaken in thinking it was Countess Romaninov who had been Lena Meredith's friend."
"Yes," said Gimblet, "and all I could discover at first was that the two ladies had indeed been acquainted. It is difficult to get at the truth when both of them have been dead for so many years, and when you will not allow me so much as to hint that you feel any interest in the matter. People are shy of answering questions relating to the private affairs of their friends when they think they are prompted by idle curiosity, and in this case it seems very doubtful whether anyone even knows the answers. But in the course of my inquiries I soon discovered the fact that Mrs. Meredith herself had adopted a child, and it certainly seems more than possible that it may have been yours and her friend's. As far as I can find out, both these young ladies are of about the same age, but no one seems to know exactly when either of them first appeared on the scene. If we can only get hold of the nurses! But at present I can find no trace of them, and you won't let me advertise."
"Gimblet, I shall be ever grateful to you," repeated Lord Ashiel. "I had no idea that Mrs. Meredith had adopted a child. I never saw her again, as I have told you, and only heard vaguely that she had married and was living abroad. I purposely avoided asking for news of her. I wished to forget everything that was past. As if that had been possible!"
"I hoped," said Gimblet, "that you would have seen some strong likeness in this young lady to yourself, or to your first wife. That would have clinched the matter to all intents and purposes. But, as things are, I shouldn't build too much on the hope that she is your daughter. It may turn out to be the girl adopted by Countess Romaninov."
"I hope not, I hope not," said Lord Ashiel earnestly. "I have got her to promise to come to Scotland, and in a few days I may get some definite clue as to which of them it is. It is a very odd coincidence that both the girls bear names so much like that of my poor wife's." He paused reflectively, and then added, "In the meantime you will go on with your inquiries, will you not?"