"Why did you come here to see me?" asked Mrs. Conroy, with a dangerous smile. "Only to abuse me?"
"There is another grant in existence for the same land that you claim as Grace Conroy or Mrs. Conroy," returned Devarges, with masculine bluntness, "a grant given prior to that made to my brother Paul. A suspicion that some imposture has been practised is entertained by the party holding the grant, and I have been requested to get at the facts."
Mrs. Conroy's grey eyes lightened. "And how were these suspicions aroused?"
"Yes; both it and the handwriting in portions of the grant are identical."
"I do; it is that of a man now here, an old Californian--Victor Ramirez!"
He fixed his eyes upon her; unabashed she turned her own clear glance on his, and asked, with a dazzling smile--
"But does not your client know that, whether this grant is a forgery or not, my husband's title is good?"
"Yes; but the sympathies of my client, as you call _her_, are interested in the orphan girl Grace."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Conroy, with the faintest possible sigh, "your client, for whom you have travelled--how many miles?--is a woman."
Half-pleased, but half-embarrassed, Devarges said "Yes."
"I understand," said Mrs. Conroy slowly. "A young woman, perhaps a good, a _pretty_ one! And you have said, 'I will prove this Mrs. Conroy an impostor,' and you are here. Well, I do not blame you. You are a man. It is well perhaps it is so."
"But, Julie, hear me!" interrupted the alarmed Devarges.
"No more!" said Mrs. Conroy, rising, and waving her thin white hand, "I do not blame you. I could expect--I deserve--no more! Go back to your client, sir, tell her that you have seen Julie Devarges, the impostor. Tell her to go and press her claim, and that you will assist her. Finish the work that the anonymous letter-writer has begun, and earn your absolution for your crime and my folly. Get your reward--you deserve it--but tell her to thank God for having raised up to her better friends than Julie Devarges ever possessed in the heyday of her beauty. Go! Farewell! No; let me go, Henry Devarges, I am going to my husband. He at least has known how to forgive and protect a friendless and erring woman."
Before the astonished man could recover his senses, elusive as a sunbeam she had slipped through his fingers and was gone. For a moment only he followed the flash of her white skirt through the dark aisles of the forest, and then the pillared trees, crowding in upon each other, hid her from view.