The woman’s passionate desire for a baby, and subsequently her sublime love for another woman’s child, had always been a matter of wonder to John Thornton. He, no less than his wife, had been deeply grieved at the death of his day-old heir, and he, with her, had opened his heart to the adopted boy. But he was a man who hated secrets, or subterfuge. His mind would have been relieved of the one burden in his life had his wife agreed to their adopted son being informed of his real parentage. Still he struggled:

“Ralph is too fine a lad to allow the knowledge to make any difference,” he said. “We know that Mary would not name her betrayer to us, but the man, likely enough, is alive and knows our secret. We can never be safe from him. He may come forward any day, probably try to blackmail us. If such a thing should happen, we should be obliged to tell Ralph, and the boy would then be perfectly justified in blaming us for our silence.”

“Mary’s betrayer would have come forward long ago if he intended to get money by blackmail,” she countered.

“But the possibility remains. Again, one day Ralph will marry. It might be Kate, or Sir Walter Thorley’s daughter. Think of the recriminations that would occur then. Can’t you see that absolute frankness now would be better for the lad, and better for us?”

“The past lies buried twenty years deep, John. Ralph is safe. I made him my baby. Do not ask me to put him from me.”

The man gave the sigh of the vanquished. Rising to his feet, he said:

“All right! Have it your own way. I hope it may be for the best.”

“I am sure it will, John,” she murmured. And then, by way of final dismissal of the subject, she changed it. “Who is it working among the orange-trees? Is he a new hand?”

The squatter paused in his walk along the veranda to say:

“Yes. I put him on this morning. I thought I knew him at first, but he says he has been all his life in Queensland. He answers to the name of William Clair.”