tly in
my defence, when I tell you that for your dear sake I made a
desperate, an awful, a sickening resolve. General Laurance was
infatuated by my beauty, which has been as fatal to his house as his
name to me. Like many handsome old men, he was inordinately vain, and
imagined himself irresistible; and when he persecuted me with
attentions that might have compromised a woman less prudent and
prudish than I bore myself, I determined to force him to an offer of
his hand, to marry him."

With a sharp cry Regina sprang up.

"Mother, not him! Not my father's father!"

"Yes, Rene Laurance, my husband's father."

With a gesture of horror the girl groaned and covered her white
convulsed face.

"Mother! Could my mother commit such a loathsome, awful crime against
God, and nature?"

"It was for your sake, my darling!" cried Mrs. Orme, wringing her
hands, as she saw the shudder with which her child repulsed her.

"For my sake that you stained you dear pure hands! For my sake that
you steeped your soul in guilt that even brutal savages abhor, and
loaded your name and memory with infamy! In his desertion my father
sinned against me, and freely because he is my father I could
forgive him; but you, the immaculate mother of my lifelong worship,
you who have reigned white-souled and angelic over all my hopes, my
aspirations, my love and reverence, oh, mother! mother, you have
doubly wronged me! The disgrace of your unnatural and heinous crime I
can never, never pardon!"

With averted head she stood apart, a pitiable picture of misery,
that could find no adequate expression.

"My baby, my love, my precious daughter!"

Ah the pleading pathos of that marvellous voice which had swayed at
will the emotions of vast audiences, as soft fitful zephyrs stir and
bow the tender grasses in quiet meadows! Slowly the girl turned
around, and reluctantly looked at the beloved beautiful face, tearful
yet smiling, beaming with such passionate tenderness upon her.

Mrs. Orme opened her arms, and Regina sprang forward, sinking on her
knees at her mother's feet, clinging to her dress.

"You could not smile upon me so, with that sin soiling your soul! Oh,
mother, say you did it not!"

"God had mercy, and saved me from it."

"Let us praise and serve Him for ever, in thanksgiving," sobbed the
daughter.

"I see now that my punishment would have been unendurable, for I
should have lost the one true, pure heart that clings to me. How do
mot