He heard this statement with open mouth. He was struck dumb.
"Understand at once, make your principal—who is she? the rich person—understand that I have never been in Birmingham in my life; and that every hour of my life can be accounted for."
"Who was that child, then?"
"Find out, if you can. It has nothing to do with me. If, twenty years ago, some woman chose, for purposes of her own, to personate the wife of Sir Humphrey—who was then in Scotland—while Sir Humphrey was on his way home from India, do you think I am going to inquire or trouble my head about her impudence?"
Richard murmured something indistinct. He did not know what to say. How could this majestic woman have done such a thing? Yet who else could have done it?
Lady Woodroffe sat down again. "I have been wrong," she said, "in getting angry over this matter. Perhaps you are not, after all, a black-mailer."
"Indeed, I am not."
"I have heard my son," she said, in a softer voice, "speak of you, Mr. Woodroffe. But I must warn you that any attempt to bring this charge will be met by my solicitors. One word more. Miss Hilarie Woodroffe has also, I believe, taken some interest in you. I would suggest, Mr. Woodroffe, that it would be foolish to throw away the only respectable connections you possess in a wild-goose chase, which can lead to nothing except ignoble pay from a woman who, by your own confession, threw away her own child or sold it to a stranger. Now you can go, sir." She did not ring the bell for the servant. She pointed, and turned back to her desk. "Have the goodness to shut the door behind you."
It was with greatly lowered spirits that Richard walked down those stairs and out of the door.