ll in the face, mother and son. "My tale-maker is
the whole town. You can not punish them all, Sir Everard. There is
truth in this story, or it never would have originated; and he has
written to her--that is beyond a doubt. He had told it himself, and
shown her reply."

"It is as false as hell!" His eyes blazed like coals of fire. "My
wife is as pure as the angels, and any one who dares doubt that purity,
even though it be the mother who bore me, is my enemy to the death!"

He dashed out of the house, mounted Sir Galahad, and rode away as if
Satan and his hosts were after him.

"Mamma! mamma!" Mildred cried, in unutterable reproach, "what have you
done?"

"Told him the truth, child. It is better he should know it, although
that knowledge parts us forever."

Like a man gone mad the young baronet galloped home. The sickly
glimmer of the fitful moon shone on a face that would never be more
ghastly in his coffin--on strained eyes and compressed lips. It seemed
to him but an instant from the time he quitted The Grange until he
dashed up the avenue at Kingsland, leaped off his foaming bay, and
strode into the house. Straight to his wife's room he went, fierce,
invincible determination in every line of his rigid face.

"She shall tell me all--she shall, by Heaven!" he cried.

He entered her dressing-room--she was, not there; her boudoir--she was
not there; her bedroom--it too was empty. He seized the bell and
nearly tore it down. Claudine, the maid, looked in with a startled
face.

"Where is your mistress?"

The girl gazed round with a bewildered air.

"Is my lady not here, sir? She sent me away over an hour ago. She was
lying down in her dressing-room; she said she was ill."

He looked at her for a moment--it was evident she was telling the
simple truth.

"Send Miss Silver here."

"I am not sure that Miss Silver is in the house, Sir Everard. I saw
her go out with Edwards some time ago but I will go and see."

Claudine departed. Five minutes passed--ten; he stood rigid as stone.
Then came steps--hurried, agitated--the footsteps of a man and a woman.

He strode out and confronted them--Edwards, his valet, and Sybilla
Silver. Both were dressed as from a recent walk; both wore strangely
pale and agitated faces.

Edwards barely repressed a cry at sight of his master.

"What is it?" Sir Everard asked.

The valet looked at Sybilla in blank terror. Miss Silver covered her
face with both hands