r want of breath. So the light by the bed was turned on
again, and to get a little further from it Molly got up and slowly and
carefully put on her stockings and fur slippers, then opened a cupboard
and took out a magnificent fur cloak and wrapped herself in it. Then
suddenly one aspect of the position became concrete to her imagination.
She knew that the cloak was bought with ill-gotten money. Her enormous
allowance after she came of age, even the expenses of her
education--Miss Carew's salary among other things--had been won by
fraud. And now, oh! why, why had not her miserable mother spoken the
truth when she got the will, or why had she not destroyed it? Why had
she left it to Molly to put right all this long, long imposture, and to
reveal to the world the story of her mother's crime? It seemed to Molly
as if she were looking on at some other girl's life, and as if she were
considering it from an external point of view. The sleeping-draught had,
no doubt, excited still further the terrible agitation of her nerves,
and ideas came to her as if they had no connection with her own
personality.

Wicked old woman, dying in Florence! How cruel those words were: "Let it
be her own affair"! Her last act to send those papers to the poor girl
she had deserted as a baby, and refused even to see as a woman. "Let it
be her own affair." Her own affair to choose actual poverty and a
terrible publicity as to the past instead of a great fortune and silence
as to her mother's guilt. "Let it be her own affair" to enrich her
enemies, to give a fortune to the woman who would scorn her! Would the
man who had pretended to be her friend, and who had been pursuing her
mother with detectives all the time, would he some day talk pityingly of
her with his wife, and say she "had really behaved very well, poor
thing"?

Suddenly Molly stopped, full of horror at a new thought. Oh! she must
make things safe and sure, or--good God!--what might not her mother's
daughter be tempted to do? A deep blush spread over her face and neck.
She moved hastily to the door, and in a moment she was in Miss Carew's
room.

"I want to speak to you; I want to tell you something," said Molly,
turning up the electric light as she spoke.

Miss Carew was startled out of a sweet sleep, and her first thought was
the one which haunted her whenever she was awakened at an untimely hour.
Her carefully-curled fringe was lying in the dressing-table drawer, and
Molly had never