, tell me what I know you have told
to no human being--the reason of your separation from the wife you
love."

Lord Arleigh hesitated for one half minute.

"What good can it possibly do?" he said.

"I am a great believer in the good old proverb that two heads are better
than one," replied the earl. "I think it is just possible that I might
have some idea that has not occurred to you; I might see some way out of
the difficulty, that has not yet presented itself to you. Please
yourself about it; either trust me or not, as you will; but if you do
trust me, rely upon it I shall find some way of helping you."

"It is a hopeless case," observed Lord Arleigh, sadly. "I am quite sure
that even if you knew all about it, you would not see any comfort for
me. For my wife's sake I hesitate to tell you, not for my own."

"Your wife's secret will be as safe with me as with yourself," said the
earl.

"I never thought that it would pass my lips, but I do trust you,"
declared Lord Arleigh; "and if you can see any way to help me, I shall
thank Heaven for the first day I met you. You must hold my wife
blameless, Lord Mountdean," he went on. "She never spoke untruthfully,
she never deceived me; but on our wedding-day I discovered that her
father was a convict--a man of the lowest criminal type."

Lord Mountdean looked as he felt, shocked.

"But how," he asked, eagerly, "could you be so deceived?"

"That I can never tell you; it was an act of fiendish revenge--cruel,
ruthless, treacherous. I cannot reveal the perpetrator. My wife did not
deceive me, did not even know that I had been deceived; she thought,
poor child, that I was acquainted with the whole of her father's story,
but I was not. And now, Lord Mountdean, tell me, do you think I did
wrong?"

He raised his care-worn, haggard face as he asked the question and the
earl was disturbed at sight of the terrible pain in it.

Chapter XXXVII.

The reason of his separation from his wife revealed, Lord Arleigh again
put the question:

"Do you think, Lord Mountdean, that I have done wrong?"

The earl looked at him.

"No," he replied, "I cannot say that you have."

"I loved her," continued Lord Arleigh, "but I could not make the
daughter of a convict the mistress of my house, the mother of my
children. I could not let my children point to a felon's cell as the
cradle of their origin. I could not sully my name, outrage a long line
of noble ancestors, by making my p