your nurse's conduct," he said, "I forbear to speak--it was cruel,
wicked; but, as love for you dictated it, I will say no more. My dear
child, you must try to forget this unhappy past, and let me atone to you
for it. I cannot endure to think that my daughter and heiress, Lady
Madaline Charlewood, should have spent her youth under so terrible a
cloud."

There came no answer, and, looking at her, he saw that the color had
left her face, that the white eyelids had fallen over the blue eyes,
that the white lips were parted and cold--she had fainted, fallen into a
dead swoon.

He knelt by her side and called to her with passionate cries, he kissed
the white face and tried to 'recall the wandering senses, and then he
rang the bell with a heavy peal. Mrs. Dornham came hurrying in.

"Look!" said Lord Mountdean. "I have been as careful as I could, but
that is your work."

Margaret Dornham knelt by the side of the senseless girl.

"I would give my life to undo my past folly," she said. "Oh, my lord,
can you ever forgive me?"

He saw the passionate love that she had for her foster-child; he saw
that it was a mother's love, tender, true, devoted and self-sacrificing,
though mistaken. He could not be angry, for he saw that her sorrow even
exceeded his own.

To his infinite joy, Madaline presently opened her dark eyes and looked
up at him. She stretched out her hands to him.

"My father," she said--"you are really my father?"

He kissed her face.

"Madaline," he replied, "my heart is too full for words. I have spent
seventeen years in looking for you, and have found you at last. My dear
child, we have seventeen years of love and happiness to make up."

"It seems like an exquisite dream," she said. "Can it be true?"

He saw her lovely face grow crimson, and bending her fair, shapely head,
she whispered:

"Papa, does Lord Arleigh know?"

"Lord Arleigh!" he repeated. "My dear child, this is the second time you
have mentioned him. What has he to do with you?"

She looked up at him in wonder.

"Do you not know?" she asked. "Have they not told you I am Lord
Arleigh's wife?"

* * * * *

Lord Arleigh felt very disconsolate that June morning. The world was so
beautiful, so bright, so fair, it seemed hard that he should have no
pleasure in it. If fate had but been kinder to him! To increase his
dullness, Lord Mountdean, who had been staying with him some days, had
suddenly disappeared. H