at the lovely child who had so
often sat on his knee, and smiled in his face, was the granddaughter
of his first and only love, he had a new interest in her welfare, a
new reason to urge Templeton to reparation, a new motive to desire to
procure for the infant years of Eleanor's grandchild the gentle care of
the young mother, whose own bereavement he sorrowfully foretold. Perhaps
the advice and exhortations of Aubrey went far towards assisting the
conscience of Mr. Templeton, and reconciling him to the sacrifice he
made to his affection for his daughter. Be that as it may, he married
Alice, and Aubrey solemnized and blessed the chill and barren union.

But now came a new and inexpressible affliction; the child of Alice had
rallied but for a time. The dread disease had but dallied with its prey;
it came on with rapid and sudden force; and within a month from the day
that saw Alice the bride of Templeton, the last hope was gone, and the
mother was bereft and childless!

The blow that stunned Alice was not, after the first natural shock of
sympathy, an unwelcome event to the banker. Now _his_ child would be
Alice's sole care; now there could be no gossip, no suspicion why, in
life and after death, he should prefer one child, supposed not his own,
to the other.

He hastened to remove Alice from the scene of her affliction. He
dismissed the solitary attendant who had accompanied her on her journey;
he bore his wife to London, and finally settled, as we have seen, at a
villa in its vicinity. And there, more and more, day by day, centred his
love upon the supposed daughter of Mrs. Templeton, his darling and his
heiress, the beautiful Evelyn Cameron.

For the first year or two, Templeton evinced some alarming disposition
to escape from the oath he had imposed upon himself; but on the
slightest hint there was a sternness in the wife, in all else so
respectful, so submissive, that repressed and awed him. She even
threatened--and at one time was with difficulty prevented carrying
the threat into effect--to leave his roof forever, if there were the
slightest question of the sanctity of his vow. Templeton trembled; such
a separation would excite gossip, curiosity, scandal, a noise in the
world, public talk, possible discovery. Besides, Alice was necessary
to Evelyn, necessary to his own comfort; something to scold in health,
something to rely upon in illness. Gradually then, but sullenly, he
reconciled himself to his lot; and as