The room seemed swimming around her. Had the sea given up its dead, that Reginald Germaine should thus stand before her? From her white, trembling lips, there dropped an almost inaudible.

“Yes!”

“And you had a child—a son—by that marriage?” went on Ray, who felt circumlocution, under the present circumstances, would be useless.

Another trembling “Yes!” from the pallid lips.

“You were told he died?”

She bent her head, silent and speechless.

“Madam—Lady De Courcy—they deceived you. That child did not die!”

White and tottering, she arose and stood on her feet.

“He did not die. Reginald Germaine told you so for his own ends. That child lived!”

Her lips parted, but no sound came forth; her eyes, wild now, were riveted to the face of the speaker.