"Then I suppose she had no relatives of her own?" asked Miss Merivale, after a pause, in which she had been struggling for her voice.
"She had some on her mother's side. I never heard their names. But her father seemed certain that they would be unkind to the child, and he was thankful when we promised to keep her. He was a queer, silent sort of man. We never knew much about him, except that he had lived in Adelaide. But he was mother and father both to Rhoda. He was just wrapped up in her. It was a pretty sight to see them together."
There were many questions Miss Merivale would have liked to ask, but she had not the courage to. She was afraid of betraying herself. She no longer felt any doubt about Rhoda's parentage. James Sampson had not perished in the bush, but had hidden himself in that lonely spot up among the hills, where either no news of the will had reached him, or he had deliberately refrained from communicating with England. Perhaps he thought that his girl would be happier with the kind M'Alisters than with her rich English relatives.
But the most probable supposition was that he had never heard of the will. Mrs. M'Alister had said that they were living fifty miles from a town. How easily it might have happened that the advertisements they put in the Melbourne papers had never been seen by him.
As soon as she could she got away, after arranging that Rhoda should bring the programmes to Woodcote one day in the following week, so that she might talk over with her the details of some other work she wanted done. Miss Merivale marvelled at herself for the calmness with which she settled all this.
But when once she was in the cab her strength left her. After telling the man to drive her to Victoria, she sank back faint and trembling. The alternatives that lay before her seemed equally impossible. If Rhoda was Lydia's child, her own niece, her successor to Woodcote, how could she leave her unacknowledged? How could she be silent about the discovery she had made, even for a day? And as Miss Merivale thought this she stretched her hand to the check-string, determining to drive at once to Lincoln's Inn to see her lawyer.
But her hand dropped at her side. All his life Tom had thought of Woodcote as his inheritance; every stone, every blade of grass, was dear to him. He would have to leave it, to go out into the world to fight for his living. How could she let him go? If she was silent, no one would be likely to guess that Rhoda was Lydia's child. She was not mentioned by name in the will. And she should not suffer. Ways and means of providing for her could be found. But she could not have Woodcote. That was Tom's. It would break Tom's heart to give it up.