"I never was told that I had a child. You might have told me that, when you told the rest."
"Would it have been easier, think you, to bear the loss of Lina, if you had been told that we were keeping you from your child? If we had told you of her birth, perhaps you might have claimed her. Lina must have learnt everything. She would have died of shame and remorse."
"When was the child born?"
"The day the news reached us of her father's loss at sea; her birth was hastened by the news. The mother nearly died. She fell out of one fainting-fit into another, till exhausted nature could endure no more. For days her life hung trembling in the balance, and then the sight of the baby turned the scale. There was something to live for--something that seemed part of you. We took them North. The baby throve, and for her sake poor Lina took heart and tried to live."
"And you deprived the child even of its father's name?"
"Hillyard adopted her. Lina had no other family. She lived five years only after that marriage."
"Why did you not restore her to me when her mother died?"
"We could not, Joseph: the world is so big. Where were we to look for you? You came no more to New Orleans. By-and-by the war drove us North, and reduced us to poverty. Mother died. I went to live with Hillyard and bring up the child. He was devoted to her. They were everything to one another. It would have been cruelty to interfere."
"You seem to have had pity for every one but me, Millicent. Could this Hillyard's rights in the child compare with mine?"
"You had gone out of our lives, Joseph. We knew--that is, I knew--little about your family, except that they lived somewhere up in Canada. That was too far away for us, living in New Orleans, to take much interest in. Afterwards, when I lived with Hillyard in Canada, near Sarnia, I did not remember, or know how to set about inquiring."