He had believed, with the rest of the world, that there had been no communication between them for years.

Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did not notice that this revelation was leaving now no excuse for his wife's presence at Boomville.
Mrs.Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, "Yes, my husband.

I went to him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child.

Yes, MY child," she said frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, "for I lied to you when I once told you I had none.

I had a child, and, more than that, a child who at his birth I did not dare to openly claim." She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former intensity as if she would pluck the thought that followed from his brain.