ncy, but I could not help it." There
was something painfully appealing in Gordon's look and manner. He seemed
so broken that James was alarmed. He said everything that he was able to
say to soothe him, commended the course which he had taken, and told him
what he had said at the store, without repeating the insinuations which
had led him to fabricate such a tale. Gordon smiled bitterly. "All your
fellowmen want of you is food for their animal appetites or their
mental," he said. "They must have meat and drink for their stomachs, as
well as for their curiosity and malice. I have lived here all these
years, and labored for them for mighty poor recompense, and sometimes
for none at all, and I'll warrant that to-day I am more in their minds
than I have ever been before, because they have found out my secret,
which has been the torture of my life. I wonder if Clemency has heard
anything about it."

"I will go and see," replied James.

The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that she
knew. By her side on the floor was the _Stanbridge Record_. She looked
at James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death.
James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs. Gordon's
death, dwelt upon her many beautiful qualities of mind and body, her
great suffering, and stated briefly the astonishment with which the news
was received that she was Doctor Gordon's wife, and not his sister, as
people had been led to suppose. "Little Annie Codman just brought it
over," said Clemency. "She said her mother sent it. It is just like her
mother. Mr. Codman never would have done such a thing."

Mr. Codman was the minister.

James, for a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurd
story which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realized
that such a fabrication would not answer here.

Immediately Clemency fired a point-blank question at him. "Who am I?"
she asked.

"You are Doctor Gordon's niece, dear."

"But--she was not my mother."

"No, dear."

"Who am I?"

"You are the daughter of Doctor Gordon's youngest sister, who died when
you were born."

Clemency sat reflecting, her forehead knit, a keen look in her blue
eyes. "I knew my father was dead," she said after a little. "Uncle Tom
has always told me that he passed away three months before I was born,
but--" She raised a puzzled, shocked, grieved face to James. "What is my
name?" she asked. "My real name?"