"After three years he had had enough of my mother. He got restive. He
was ambitious. He wanted to shine in London, where he was known, and
where his family had made traditions in the theatrical world. But he
felt that my mother wouldn't--wouldn't be suitable for London. Fancy
the absurdity of a man trying to make a name in London when hampered
by a wife who was practically of the peasant class! He simply left
her. Oh, it was no common case of desertion. He used his influence
over my mother to make her consent. She did consent. It broke her
heart, but hers was the sort of love that suffers, so she let him go.
He arranged to allow her a reasonable income.
"I can just remember a man who must have been my father. I was three
years old when he left us. Till then we had lived in a large house in
an old city. Can't you guess what house that was? Of course you can.
Yes, it was the house at Bruges where Alresca died. We gave up that
house, my mother and I, and went to live in Italy. Then my father sold
the house to Alresca. I only knew that to-day. You may guess my
childish recollections of Bruges aren't very distinct. It was part of
the understanding that my mother should change her name, and at Pisa
she was known as Madame Montigny. That was the only surname of hers
that I ever knew.
"As I grew older, my mother told me fairy-tales to account for the
absence of my father. She died when I was sixteen, and before she died
she told me the truth. She begged me to promise to go to him, and said
that I should be happy with him. But I would not promise. I was
sixteen then, and very proud. What my mother had told me made me hate
and despise my father. I left my dead mother's side hating him; I had
a loathing for him which words couldn't express. She had omitted to
tell me his real name; I never asked her, and I was glad not to know
it. In speaking of him, of course she always said 'your father', 'your
father', and she died before she got quite to the end of her story. I
buried my mother, and then I was determined to disappear. My father
might search, but he should never find me. The thought that he would
search and search, and be unhappy for the rest of his life because he
couldn't find me, gave me a kind of joy. So I left Pisa, and I took
with me nothing but the few hundred lire which my mother had by her,
and the toy dagger--my father's gift--which she had always worn in her
hair.