"'Send and see,' said I. 'If you cheat me, I'll raise the hue and cry against you.'
"'Who will believe you against me?' said he with a sneer. 'I am an Englishman of unblemished character. What would your assertions be against mine? However, I don't want to cheat you. Come here to-morrow.'
"To make a long story short, the woman who had had the care of the child came roaring and crying to this man, who was another Deering,—he never disguised his name,—and said the child had been killed, or at any rate burned to death, and Deering was killed too while she was away, taking some food to her husband. Anyhow that long devil was satisfied, and gave me the money. I must hurry a bit.
"I had agreed to quit South America, and so I took a passage to Melbourne. I never thought the child would live; she pined and seemed silly. There was a good woman on board the vessel we sailed in who took to my little darling. She had lost her baby and her husband. He was the skipper of a ship that traded between San Francisco and Callao, and sometimes to Melbourne. She was wonderful fond of Elsie. I called her Elsie after a little sister of my own; I never knew what name she had been christened. This good woman is Mrs. Kellett. She was going to join a sister who was married in Melbourne, and intended getting work of some kind, as she had little or no money.
"Well, the upshot was, that she agreed to take charge of Elsie. I paid well; and then I took to breaking horses, then I bought and sold them, and made a good bit, and saved—Lord, how I saved! I left off drink,—two glasses of beer in the day was my allowance. If I could only make up to that child for all I had robbed her of!—and she began to know me. The day she first put her little arms round my neck, and stroked my face, and wouldn't let me go, I made a darned fool of myself, and cried. Mrs. Kellett, not understanding, says, 'She'll be as sensible as any child yet.' Ah! so she is. One time I wasn't lucky, that is, I got next to nothing for myself, for I kept the profits of Elsie's money separate from my own, and it's wonderful how everything I undertook for that child prospered. It was then I went over to California, and scraped around a bit, and collected gold-dust and nuggets; some I bought, some I dug myself. It was there I fell in with you, Glynn. I seemed a penniless adventurer, didn't I? Aha, my boy!—I had nigh a thousand pounds' worth stitched into my belt. I kept out a little just to throw away and keep up with the others, but did you ever see me forget myself in drink?"
"I was always struck by your extreme temperance," returned Glynn.
"Ah! well, those were happy days," resumed Lambert. "After that spurt I went back to Melbourne. Presently Mrs. Kellett wanted to go home; her brother had come into his uncle's farm; he was a widower, with a lot of boys, and wrote for his sister to keep his house; so I came with her, and saw the place, and left my precious child there, where she throve like a lily for near five years. I settled in Paris, always working her money and my own very cautiously, and looking forward to the day she'd come and take care of her father. I declare to God, I used to forget she wasn't my own child! When she was, as I reckoned, about twelve, I put her into the convent, and used to have her out on holidays. She never enjoyed them more than I did, and she grew fonder and fonder of me. Then I made a snug little nest for her, and took her home for good. Then I met you, Glynn, and now I'm coming to the trouble. You remember Vincent. Well, when I first met him with some very respectable Americans in Paris, I was puzzled with the notion that I had seen him before, and I told him so. Then he grinned, and said he was the boy that had witnessed my duel with Deering. We agreed to bury the past, as it wasn't exactly a letter of recommendation. I wasn't over-pleased with him, but he was uncommon civil, and used to come to the house, and I got accustomed to him. Then he proposed for Elsie, and I refused him; still he hung on, and asked a second time; after that he got spiteful. You know all about that time, Glynn! Wasn't it a slice out of heaven? It didn't last long. You were at the Davilliers' the evening I came in, and saw Deering talking to my Elsie, and looking at her. By Heaven, I understood his looks! and if I had had my knife in my belt, as in the old days, he'd have looked his last. I thought the sight of me would have frightened him."
Lambert paused, and lay back in his chair.
"Did he recognize you?" cried Lady Gethin with breathless interest.
"Ay, that he did. He was calm, and civil, and damnably superior, and came the next day to call, and sat talking so softly and elegantly to my blessed child. At last he begged for a private interview with me,—said he had something of importance to say. I was obliged to go to his hotel, there was no use refusing." Lambert stopped, took a little more brandy-and-water, drew a long breath, and began again. "As soon as the door was closed he asked me to come up by his writing-table. Then looking straight at me he exclaimed, 'You lied to me. You did not strangle Gilbert Deering's infant! I recognized the girl's likeness to her mother at the first glance.'