"My mother!" Beatrice stopped short at the door, and caught hold of a chair to support herself. The shock of this discovery came upon her with overwhelming force. "Impossible!"

"It is true," said Lady Watson, advancing towards her with outstretched arms. "I am your most unhappy mother."

The girl suffered the little woman to embrace her, but did not return the caress. "My mother!" she repeated again faintly; "it is impossible, Lady Watson."

"Don't call me Lady Watson. I am your mother. I should not have told you: I promised Durban that I would not. But Nature is too, too strong," cried Lady Watson theatrically; "my heart spoke, and I responded. Darling! darling!" She embraced Beatrice still more affectionately, and guided her to a low armchair, into which the bewildered girl sank unresistingly.

Was Lady Watson in earnest? Was she really her mother? Were these violent demonstrations genuine? Beatrice could not tell. The whole thing seemed to be beyond the bounds of possibility. What of the supposed mother who was buried in Hurstable churchyard? Revolving these things in a much-puzzled brain, Beatrice sat silently staring at the artificial little woman who claimed so sacred a relationship. Lady Watson, seeing the girl's coldness--as she thought it was--squeezed out a few serviceable tears.

"Oh, cruel, cruel!" she wept. "My own child--the baby that I carried in my arms--to act like this! It is wicked, it is incredible."

"Mother!" said Beatrice blankly. "Are you really and truly my mother?"

"Of course I am," snapped the elder woman, drying her tears. "How often do you wish me to repeat it? I am not in the habit of calling other people's children my children. Can't you say something more affectionate, you cold-hearted girl?"

"It is all so strange--so new," gasped Beatrice. "Tell me how it came about that I never knew this until now."

"It's Durban's fault," said Lady Watson sullenly. "Durban always hated me, though I'm sure I was always kind to him--the beast!"

"Durban is a good man," said Beatrice quickly.

"Oh! dear me, that is exactly the exasperating sort of thing your father would have said. He was a good man also--the kind of man I most particularly hate. Never mind, I'll make everything plain to you. I've held my tongue long enough. Now I am going to speak out, and take back to my hungry heart the baby girl I loved."

"Did you really love me?" asked Beatrice doubtfully.

"Yes--really I did. You were all that I had to love, as my husband--the first one, your father--was a kind of stone image with no feelings and no affections. I loved you fondly, and wanted to be your dearest mother--which I certainly am--but that Durban and that horrid Alpenny were too strong for me. No, it wasn't Alpenny. I don't think he wanted to bring you up; but Durban insisted, and I gave way."

"Why did you?"

"There were reasons," said Lady Watson evasively, and a spot of red burned on either cheek.

"They must have been strong reasons to make a mother surrender her child to the care of strangers."

"Durban wasn't a stranger. He was in the house when you were born; and really you might have been his own child, from the fuss he made over you. But Colonel Hall--your father, my dear--saved Durban from being lynched in America, and Durban always pretended that he loved him dearly."

"I am sure Durban did," insisted Beatrice. "He is not a man who says one thing and does another."

"That is just what he does do," cried Lady Watson, fanning herself with a flimsy handkerchief all lace and scent. "Look at the way he has kept you in the dark all these years. And I am quite sure that he has told you heaps and heaps of lies! These niggers never can tell the truth."

"Durban told me as little as he could," confessed Beatrice; "but he never told me a deliberate lie, I am sure. But if you are my mother, who is the woman who is buried as you?"

"Not as me--the idea!" protested Lady Watson; "as Alpenny's wife--and a nice bargain she got in that old scoundrel! She was Amelia Hedge, and called herself Mrs. Hedge when she married Alpenny, to account for you. It wasn't my fault. I'm sure I always liked to have you with me, Beatrice, as you were such a pretty child, and it looks well to have one's children about one, nowadays. But Durban would insist that I should give you up--and perhaps he was right after all," ended Lady Watson candidly "as Sir Reginald--my second husband--would never have married a widow with a child."

So the weak little woman babbled on, and Beatrice felt her heart sink as she at last beheld her mother. To think that this frivolous and weak creature should have given her birth! Then a thought came to her. "Durban said that my mother was quiet and silent."

"And so I was, for years and years and years. Colonel Hall--I never could call him George, he was so military and stiff--made my life a perfect burden, and never would give me any pleasure. I was crushed, Beatrice, perfectly crushed, and held my tongue because I could not be natural. I was a dull, dowdy thing in those days. But now I really am something to look at and to listen to!" and Lady Watson smirked in a near mirror at her artificial beauty.

"Mother," said Beatrice, accepting what appeared to be the inevitable with a good grace, although the discovery of the relationship did not please her, "will you tell me if you had anything to do with the murder of my father?"

"Oh, dear me! no," said Lady Watson perfectly calmly, and showing no signs of indignation at the accusation,--which it was, in a way. "Of course Durban made capital out of it, and forced me to part with you and the necklace because of that horrid death. But I've got back the necklace"--Lady Watson fingered it fondly--"and you."

"How did you get the necklace?"

"A friend of mine called Miss Carr gave it to me. She got it from her father, though I don't know how he got it, I'm sure. Major Ruck--you know the man, dear?--wanted Maud--that is Miss Carr--to give it up, and would have killed her for it. He's just the sort of bully who would kill a woman to get money, and I don't mind saying it, although he was my friend. So Maud, to spite him, gave it to me, and----"

"Wait one moment, mother. Were you not going to elope with Major----"

Lady Watson interrupted in her turn, and uttered an embarrassed scream. "Yes, I was, my dear. Your father was a bear--there's no good saying anything else. He was a bear! I couldn't stand his Puritan airs any longer, and on the very night he was murdered I intended to elope with him, to pay your father out. But Alpenny met me----"

"At the head of the stairs?"

"Who told you that?"

"Mrs. Snow," said Beatrice promptly.

"Julia Duncan? Ah, she always was a false-hearted cat. Why, the very last time I saw her, and that was when I went down to get Alpenny's money, she promised to hold her tongue."

"I forced her to speak."

"And you have forced me, you clever girl. I promised Durban never to reveal who I really was but I did so, through natural affections; and now you know. I'm sure I don't care," added Lady Watson with a reckless air. "Durban can do his worst."

"What can he do?"

"Accuse me of your father's murder, although I'm as innocent as a child. But I dare say he'll hold his tongue if I pay him well. He was always fond of money, and Alpenny's legacy has made me rich."

"I don't think Durban can be bribed, nor do I think he is fond of money," said Beatrice with decision. "But for my sake, he may hold his tongue."

"Well, I shan't give up the Obi necklace," muttered Lady Watson. "The Colonel bought it for me; he got it from a Brazilian negro, and said there was a curse on it,--at least the negro did. For that reason your father--who really was fond of me, I suppose, although he had a horrid, dull way of showing his love--would not give it to me. He kept it in a green box along with his papers beside his bed, and I got it from there when he was lying dead."

"Did you see him dead?" asked Beatrice, horrified. "Of course I did. That is why Durban says that I killed him. He always did hate me, the beast!"

Beatrice passed her hand wearily across her forehead. "I cannot gather much from these scraps of information," she said irritably; "please tell me............