She had been no frequenter of "gambling joints" whatever her peccadilloes; Gabrielle, he happened to know, had died some eight or ten years ago, and Mademoiselle Pauline Marie, if she had had a child, which was extremely doubtful, was the sort that sends unwelcome offspring post haste to the foundling asylum.
There remained only the spurious Mrs.Medford, and she was the probability on all counts.

What more likely than that she and Mrs.Lawton had met at one of the great winter hotels in Southern California, and foregathered?
Certainly they would be congenial spirits.
When the baby came Mrs.Lawton would naturally see her through her trouble, and advise her later what to do with the child.

No doubt, Medford found it in the way.
After that Ruyler could only fumble.

Did Medford desert the woman, driving her on the stage ?--or elsewhere?
Did they start for Japan, and did he die on the voyage?
Did he merely give the woman a pension and tell her to go back to Rouen, or to the devil?
It was positive that when Helene was five years old Madame Delano had gone back to her relatives with some trumped up story and been received by them.
Moreover, this theory coincided with, his belief that Helene's father was a gentleman.

No doubt he had been already married when he met the young French girl, superbly handsome, and intelligent--possibly at one of the French watering places, even in Rouen itself, swarming with tourists in Summer.