Joan gave a tense sigh. She knew what was to follow. The red-gold hair told its own story. Mercy Lascelles raised a pair of stony eyes, and her thin lips were smiling.
"I can see you understand," she said, without emotion. "Yes, she came, and she stole your father from me. Oh, yes! she was handsome enough to steal any man. She was even more beautiful than you are. It was just before we were to be married. Less than a week. A good time to steal him from me--after three years of waiting." She laughed bitterly. "She stole him, and I--I cursed her. Oh, I didn't cry out! I simply cursed her, I cursed her offspring, and burned every garment I had made or bought for the wedding in my parlor stove. I sat by and watched the fire as it hungrily devoured each record of my foolish day-dreams. And as each one vanished in cinder and smoke I cursed her from the very bottom of my heart."
The woman laughed again, and Joan could not repress a shudder at the sound.
"Twelve months she had of him. And during those twelve months both he and she nearly drove me mad in their efforts to make me marry your father's great friend and fellow gambler. His name doesn't matter. He was a brown-haired creature, who was, if possible, a greater gambler than your father. But unlike your father his luck was phenomenal. He grew rich whilst Charles Stanmore, with every passing week, grew poorer. And for twelve long months he persecuted me with his attentions. He never left me alone. I sometimes think he was crazy in his desire to marry me. He knew the whole of my wretched story, yet it made no difference. He swore to me in his mildly deliberate way that I should marry him. Perhaps I ought to have read the real character of the man underlying his gentle manner, but, poor fool that I was, I didn't. It was left to later events to open my eyes, events which were to teach me that under the guise of friendship he hated Charles Stanmore, because--because, in spite of everything, I still loved him.
"At the end of those twelve months my cup of bitterness was filled to overflowing. You were born. You, with your deep-blue eyes and red-gold hair. You, Charles Stanmore's child--but not mine."
Her voice died out, and Joan understood something of the passion in this strange woman's soul. But the next moment a hard laugh jarred her nerves. It was a laugh that had no mirth. Only was it an audible expression designed to disguise real feelings.