‘You are sure of this?’
‘Mr. Jordan told me so.’
‘Did you not pursue her?’
‘To what end? I had done my duty. I had tried my utmost to recover my daughter, and when for the second time she played me false, I wiped off the dust of my feet as a testimony against her.’
‘She left her child?’
‘Yes, she deserted her child as well as her husband—that is to say, Mr. Ignatius Jordan. She deserted the house that had sheltered her, to run after a homeless, bespangled, bepainted play-actor. I know all about it. The life at Morwell was too dull for her, it was duller there than at Buckfastleigh. Here she could see something of the world; she could watch the factory hands coming to their work and leaving it; but there she was as much out of the world as if she were in Lundy Isle. She had a hankering after the glitter and paint of this empty world.’
‘I cannot believe this. I cannot believe that she would desert the man who befriended her, and forsake her child.’
‘You say that because you did not know her. You know Martin; would he not do it? You know Watt; has he any scruples and strong domestic affections? She was like them; had in her veins the same boiling, giddy, wanton blood.’
Jasper knew but too well that Martin and Watt were unscrupulous, and followed pleasure regardless of the calls of duty. He had been too young when his sister left home to know anything of her character. It was possible that she had the same light and careless temperament as Martin.
‘A horse that shies once will shy again,’ said the old man. ‘Eve ran away from home once, and she ran away from the second home. If she did not run away from home a third time it probably was that she had none to desert.’