Presently Mrs. Cortelyon spoke again. "While we are talking about Mr. Dare, there is something else with which he is concerned that I may as well tell you about, as my doing so may perhaps prevent any misunderstanding in time to come."
She closed her eyes for a few seconds while she inhaled her smelling-salts. Then she went on:
"Although both the doctor and Mrs. Mardin try to keep the truth from me, I am not deceived. That my days are numbered, that a very few weeks will bring the end, I know full well--and Mr. Dare knows it too. The last time he was here I challenged him with the truth, and he could not deny it. It was the uncertainty about my child's future, which lay like a dead weight at my heart, that impelled me to do so. But he--God bless him for it!--at once put my mind at rest on that score. He gave me his solemn promise that when I am gone he will act a father's part by his dead friend's child. He will bring up Evan as if he were his own son. That the boy is his godson I have already told you."
"But what if Evan's grandfather should some day change his mind and want to claim him?" The question sprang to Nell's lips almost before she knew that it had formed itself in her mind.
An angry light leapt into the young widow's eyes; a spot of vivid red flamed out in either cheek. For a moment or two she bit her nether lip hard, as if thereby to control her emotion. Then she said: "If I thought there was any likelihood of my darling ever falling into the hands of that cruel and wicked old man, I am quite sure that I should never rest in my grave. Oh, if only, when I am dead, I may be allowed to haunt him! But you do not think, do you, dear Miss Baynard, that he is ever likely to want to claim Evan?"
"One never can tell what may happen. Even the most self-willed people sometimes see reason to change their mind. My uncle is an old man, and Evan is his lineal heir. He has neither child nor grandchild but him. What more natural than that he should some day turn round, hold out his arms, and say: 'The past is dead and buried. Come to me. You belong to me and to me only. I am rich, and all that I have is yours?' What is to hinder such a thing from coming to pass?"
Mrs. Cortelyon remained silent for a few moments as if considering the picture thus presented to her. Then she said: "When Geoff comes next I must talk to him about it. You have frightened me. Neither he nor I have dreamt of such a possibility. When I am dead the child must disappear, he must be hidden away by Geoff where the Squire, should he ever want to do so, could not find him. Rather, I truly believe, could I bear to see Evan stark in his coffin than walking hand in hand with that flinty-hearted old man. I never hated any one in my life as I hate him, and I shall keep on hating him after I am dead."
Miss Baynard paid two more visits to Lawn Cottage before the time came for her and her uncle to go back to Stanbrook. Evan was at home on both occasions, and on both occasions they went together for a long walk. The boy took to her from the first. He was a handsome, healthy child, and--or so it seemed to Nell--wonderfully like what his father must have been at the same age. She would have liked dearly to take him and set him down suddenly in front of the Squire, and leave the rest to Nature's prompting, but such a course was out of the question. All she could do was to extort a promise from Mrs. Cortelyon that if that should come to pass which she herself asserted to be inevitable, and the boy before long be left motherless, then should she, Nell, be informed, either by Mr. Dare or Mr. McManus, where he could at any time be found, and should be allowed to have access to him as often as she might feel disposed to claim the privilege.
When the time came for the two women to say goodbye, both knew that the parting was a final one, but not a word was said by either to that effect. Both feigned a cheerfulness which was the last thing in the heart of either, and it was a relief to both when the ordeal was over and the door shut between them. Then came the time for tears.
Before leaving town Nell paid a second visit to Mr. McManus, and got him to promise to write to her as soon as all was over. It was a promise the old tobacconist faithfully kept, and Nell had only been six weeks back at home when the fatal tidings reached her.