She sighed. "Yes—yes. I try not to think of it. He deserted me after that last tramp. He couldn't bear the crying of the dear child. He deserted me, and when I found him again, in America, he put me away—by the law, as if he was ashamed of me."
"Desertion and divorce," said Dick, "were my mother's lot as well. She, too, was deserted and divorced. Is it a common lot?"
"His name," said Alice, "was the same as yours. It was Woodroffe—and you are strangely like him."
"My father's name was John Anthony Woodroffe."
Alice sprang to her feet and clasped her hands. "Oh, my dream—my dream! Is it coming true? You are—you are—— Oh, how old are you?"
She caught him by the arm, and gazed into his face as if seeking her own likeness there as well as her husband's.
"I am twenty-two."
"No; it is impossible." She sank back. "For a moment I thought you might be—my own boy. Yet you are his. Oh, it is strange! Who was your mother, then?"
"She was a rider in a circus."
"And he married her and deserted her?"