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‘Know me? She had never seen me, nor heard of me—how should she know me? And I was left for a long time in a state I can’t describe—wondering whether it could be a relation—God knows what I didn’t think! Everybody knew the girl. She was the schoolmistress, as it turned out, but a lady every inch of her. Everybody liked her, consulted her, clustered about her. I heard nothing but Joyce, Joyce, wherever I turned.’

Mrs. Hayward’s impatience seemed to have died away. She patted his arm with her small hand, saying, ‘Poor Henry!’ with a tone of compunction in her pity. She had done him wrong, or else she had done wrong to Joyce. To Joyce—the very name, though she had heard it so often, was like an arrow quivering in her heart.

‘Elizabeth, all that is as nothing to what I am going to tell you now. I want all your attention. I have waited till you came: I haven’t even tried to think: I have said to myself, Elizabeth will know. Now you must give your mind to it, and tell me what to do. Elizabeth, this is the story I heard. Twenty years ago, just the date I’ve often told you—the date I remember so well—you know, my dear, you know——’