felt myself called hither. And
she knows her crime is detected? How came she to know this? Did you
recognize her and tell her?"

"I recognized her and told her. There was no other course. We met in the
secret chamber, whither she had come to make her own terrible
investigations; and the sight of her there, on the spot where she had
left the innocent to die, was too much for my sense of justice. I
accused her to her face, and she crouched before me as under the lash.
There was no possibility of denial after that, and she now lies--"

"Wait!" he cried, catching me painfully by the arm. "When was this day?
To-day--to-night?"

"Not two hours ago."

His brow took on a look of awe.

"You see," he murmured, "she has power over me yet. When her hope broke,
something snapped within me here. I abhor her, but I feel her grief. She
was once all the world to me."

I recognized his right to emotion, and did not profane it by any words
of mine. Instead of that I sought to leave him, but he would not let me
go till he had asked me another question.

"And the daughter?" he urged. "Does she know of the opprobrium which
must fall upon her head?"

"She sleeps," I replied, "with a smile of the shyest delight upon her
lips. Her lover has followed her to this place, and the last words she
heard to-night were those of his devotion. Her suffering must come
to-morrow; yet it will be mitigated, for he will not forsake her,
whatever shame may follow his loyalty. I have his word for that."

"Then the earth holds two lovers," was Mark Felt's rejoinder. "I thought
it held but one." And with a sigh he let go my arm and turned to the
window, with its background of driving rain and pitiless flashes of
lightning.

I took the opportunity to excuse myself for a few minutes, and hurrying
again into the hall, hastened, with nervous fear and an agitation
greatly heightened by the unexpected interview I had just been through,
to the now oft-opened door leading into the oak parlor.

I found it closed but not locked, and pushing it open, listened for a
moment, then took a glance within. All was quiet and ghostly. A single
candle guttering on the table at one end of the room lent a partial
light by which I could discern the funereal bed and the other heavy and
desolate-looking articles of furniture with which the room was
encumbered. Honora's flowers, withering on the window seat, spoke of
tender hopes not yet vanished from her tender dreams, but e