"I told her not to come," William interposed sullenly. "I dared her to come here annoying you."

Mr Graynor silenced him with a gesture, never once removing his gaze from the nervous, but still defiant, face. His question had been addressed to the girl, and he waited for her to answer him. She drew the child closer to her, and looked into the cold unsympathetic face of her questioner, and answered with a sort of sulky shame:

"I've brought William Graynor's son 'ome."

William made a move, taking a quick step towards her as though he would have silenced her with force; but no one looked in his direction; and he shrank back to his former position by the door.

"You make a serious charge," Mr Graynor said, speaking harshly. "It will go hard with you if you cannot prove your words."

"I can prove them all right," she answered sulkily.

"I do not believe you," Mr Graynor said. "This sort of thing has been tried often enough. It is an audacious lie. I say it is a lie. Give me your proof."

Bessie Clapp smiled faintly. Her manner was growing more a.s.sured; the nervousness which the unexpected sight of him had caused her, was less apparent now.

"You can't 'ave looked at the boy," she said, and bent down and removed the cap from the child's head and turned his face towards the man who questioned the truth of her statement.

Mr Graynor had given only a cursory glance at the child; he looked now more closely, and, staring with dim eyes fierce with pa.s.sionate anger into the small face, beheld as in the days of his own youth the features of his elder son faithfully reproduced. There could be no dispute as to the likeness. A sickening sense of the truth of the woman's claim, which before he had not so much doubted as refused to admit, held him dumb. He put his hand before his eyes to shut out the sight of the child's face; and the little fellow, thoroughly frightened now, began to whimper. His mother held him and hushed his cries.

"You see," she said, watching Mr Graynor curiously, fascinated and somewhat awed by his evident emotion; "that's my proof. One 'as only to look at 'im to see who's 'is father."

A groan escaped Mr Graynor's lips. He took his hand from before his eyes, and pushed aside some papers on the table, and rested his arms on it as before.

"How dare you bring him here?" he asked in low shaking tones. "Why do you bring him--now--after all this time? You want money, I suppose?"

Bessie Clapp turned a resentful gaze from him to William, who, furtively watching her, remained with his shoulders hunched dejectedly, scowling malevolently at her, and at the child whose claim upon him she sought to establish.

"'E knows why I came," she said, indicating William with a brief nod.

"I gave 'im 'is chance; but 'e wouldn't 'elp me. I asked 'im to take the child off my 'ands, and 'e refused. 'E thought the work'ouse good enough for 'is son. But the work'ouse don't 'elp these cases; and anyway I wouldn't care for 'im to go there. And I can't keep 'im no longer I'm going to be married. My man's joined up, and I'll draw the separation allowance. But 'e don't want _'is_ child."

Again she gave a nod indicating William, and then brought her gaze back to Mr Graynor's face. The sight of the pained humiliation of his look caused a softening in her voice and manner. She had not wanted to distress him; she was not vindictive. She only required that the father of her child should make provision for it. He was wealthy enough to do so.

"I am sorry to 'ave 'ad to come," she said. "I didn't mean no 'arm. If 'e 'adn't treated me mean, I wouldn't 'a come. But I've got a chance now to start fair. I want to place the child somewheres. Plenty would take 'im if I could get the money guaranteed. But _'e_," with another nod at William, "won't do nothing. That's why I came. I warned 'im all right."

The red of William's face deepened to purple. He looked at the woman as if he would have killed her had he dared; but he did not move, did not utter a word even in his own defence. His animus against this girl, who had been his mistress, arose from the fact that she had broken with him.

Had the initiative been his he might have acted differently. He hated her while he listened to her scornful denunciation of himself, and the sordid story of his meanness which she mercilessly unfolded. Not a word of what she uttered but had the ring of truth in it, and not a word in the miserable recital reflected any credit upon himself. He shifted his feet uneasily, and turned his furtive eyes from the spectacle of her standing there in her dark and tragic beauty, with the boy clinging timidly to her skirt, hiding his tear-stained face in her dress in fear of the old man who sat and glared at him and spoke to his mother in harsh angry tones. They frightened him, these strange people. He wanted to go away from the big house, and this fierce old man, and the red-faced man, whom he knew slightly but did not like. The red-faced man so often made his mother cry. But the mother took no heed of the small hands tugging at her dress; her thoughts were intent on other matters than the child's distress.

Mr Graynor, his face transformed with anger, turned to his son, and, in a voice broken with emotion, with shame for that son's dishonourable conduct and most despicable meanness, bade him speak.

"You stand there and say nothing to these charges," he cried. "Why don't you speak? Have you nothing to say in answer to what this woman alleges?"

"What is there to say?" William returned. "No doubt the child is mine.

But I don't flatter myself that I have been more favoured than others.

She is a loose woman; and she is lucky enough to have forced a claim on me."

"You lie, William Graynor," she said fiercely. "And you know that you lie. From the time you pursued me, when I worked in the factory, a girl of sixteen, to the moment when I met the man I am going to marry, I never looked at another man. You are a mean liar, that's what you are."

Mr Graynor, ignoring the speaker and still looking towards his son, struck the table violently with his hand in an access of indignant anger.

"You admit the paternity of this child, and, instead of sharing the responsibility, meanly try to shift it, and impugn the morality of a woman whose immorality you brought about! How dare you utter these things in my hearing?"

"I've paid her," William excused himself, and fingered his collar nervously as though it were too tight. "I kept her so long as--" He broke off abruptly; and added in a savage voice: "She's had money enough from me."

"I'm not complaining of what's past," the girl interposed. "If you 'adn't stopped the payments I shouldn't be 'ere now. I can't afford to keep the child. 'E's as much yours as mine."

"There," Prudence broke in to the general astonishment, for she had remained so quiet until now that they had almost forgotten her presence, "you are mistaken. The law protects the man in these cases."

"Then the law's rotten bad," said Bessie Clapp bitterly.

Whether the sudden recollection of his daughter's presence decided Mr Graynor to bring the interview to a close, or if he felt unequal to further discussion is uncertain, but at this point he waved the girl to silence, and unlocking a drawer in the table, took out his cheque book and wrote a cheque and tore it out and pa.s.sed it across the table to her.

"I will see that my son makes suitable provision for the child," he said quaveringly.

Bessie Clapp took the cheque and stood with it in her hand, looking at him out of her dark, sombre eyes.

"I'm sorry I come," she said falteringly. "I'm going right away from 'ere. You won't see me no more."

Then suddenly Prudence rose. She left her place by the fire, and crossing to where the other girl stood beside the table, she bent over the child and took the little fellow by the hand and drew him to her.

"I am a childless woman," she said, in a sweet voice full of sympathy, "and I love children. Give him to me."

CHAPTER FORTY.

A bomb falling in their midst could scarcely have caused a greater sensation than was produced by Prudence's request. The effect of her speech and of her action was electrical. Only the child remained unmoved; and he, rea.s.sured doubtless by the quiet composure of her bearing amid the general tension, which he realised without understanding it, and the sweet gentleness of her voice, ceased his plaintive whimpering and stared at her with round eyes filled with wonderment, and forgot his fear.

Bessie Clapp stared also, a solemn light in her dark eyes, and with a face grown tender and womanly, with all the hardness gone from its look.

But William Graynor, flushed with anger, strode forward to intervene; and the old man, looking with disfavour upon the grouping, uttered: "No, no!" in tones of sharp protest, and put out a hand and touched Prudence's sleeve.

"The child will be all right," he said. "Leave this to me."

She turned to him with a wistful smile.

"He's n.o.body's bairn," she said. "n.o.body wants him--except me."

"Your husband wouldn't like it," he remonstrated. "You have to consider him. Take the child away," he added, addressing Bessie Clapp. "I will communicate with you later."

Prudence gave the boy into his mother's charge and walked with them to the door.

"If I can arrange it, are you willing to give him up to me entirely?"

she asked.

"Yes, miss," Bessie answered in awed tones; and added, almost in a whisper: "It 'ud be a fine thing for 'im, any'ow."

"'E's good," she said, with the door open and her hand upon it. "'E ban't like 'is father; 'e ban't mean."

Prudence returned to confront her father and brother, both of them disturbed, though in different degrees, by her unlooked for interference. Mr Graynor regretted having allowed her to be present at the interview, while William resented deeply the fact that his double life should have been revealed to the young sister whom he had systematically snubbed and preached to all the years she had lived in the home. The knowledge that she wished to adopt his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son was insupportable.

"Let me beg, sir," he said, crimson and spluttering for words, "that you won't permit this. It's indecent. It's--unthinkable. I can't agree to it."