“You may, so long as you do not drag my name into the papers,” she replied.  “But pray, how do you know that I have the sad shame of being John Maitland’s sister-in-law?”

“I found that out at Market Milcaster,” said Spargo.  “The photographer told me—­Cooper.”

“Ah!” she exclaimed.

“The questions I want to ask are very simple,” said Spargo.  “But your answers may materially help me.  You remember Maitland going to prison, of course?”

Miss Baylis laughed—­a laugh of scorn.

“Could I ever forget it?” she exclaimed.

“Did you ever visit him in prison?” asked Spargo.

“Visit him in prison!” she said indignantly.  “Visits in prison are to be paid to those who deserve them, who are repentant; not to scoundrels who are hardened in their sin!”

“All right.  Did you ever see him after he left prison?”

“I saw him, for he forced himself upon me—­I could not help myself.  He was in my presence before I was aware that he had even been released.”

“What did he come for?” asked Spargo.

“To ask for his son—­who had been in my charge,” she replied.

“That’s a thing I want to know about,” said Spargo.  “Do you know what a certain lot of people in Market Milcaster say to this day, Miss Baylis?—­they say that you were in at the game with Maitland; that you had a lot of the money placed in your charge; that when Maitland went to prison, you took the child away, first to Brighton, then abroad—­disappeared with him—­and that you made a home ready for Maitland when he came out.  That’s what’s said by some people in Market Milcaster.”

Miss Baylis’s stern lips curled.

“People in Market Milcaster!” she exclaimed.  “All the people I ever knew in Market Milcaster had about as many brains between them as that cat on the wall there.  As for making a home for John Maitland, I would have seen him die in the gutter, of absolute want, before I would have given him a crust of dry bread!”

“You appear to have a terrible dislike of this man,” observed Spargo, astonished at her vehemence.

“I had—­and I have,” she answered.  “He tricked my sister into a marriage with him when he knew that she would rather have married an honest man who worshipped her; he treated her with quiet, infernal cruelty; he robbed her and me of the small fortunes our father left us.”

“Ah!” said Spargo.  “Well, so you say Maitland came to you, when he came out of prison, to ask for his boy.  Did he take the boy?”

“No—­the boy was dead.”

“Dead, eh?  Then I suppose Maitland did not stop long with you?”

Miss Baylis laughed her scornful laugh.

“I showed him the door!” she said.

“Well, did he tell you that he was going to Australia?” enquired Spargo.

“I should not have listened to anything that he told me, Mr. Spargo,” she answered.

“Then, in short,” said Spargo, “you never heard of him again?”