is was
indeed leaning over the bed almost before she finished speaking.

"I want to talk to you and Chris," the old lady said, contentedly
closing her eyes. "Everybody else out!" she whispered.

The room was immediately cleared. "It can't hurt her now!" Doctor Murray
looked rather than said to Norma as he passed her. Chris watched the
closing doors, sat beside the bed's head with one arm half-supporting
his mother-in-law's pillows.

"We're all alone, Aunt Marianna," he said. "Leslie and Annie will be
here in the morning, and Alice told me to tell you that she hoped----"

"Chris," the sick woman interrupted, gazing at him with an intense and
painful stare, "this child here--Norma! I--I must straighten it all out
now, Chris. Kate knows. Kate has all the papers--letters--Louison's
letters! Ask Kate----"

She shut her eyes. Norma and Chris looked at one another in
bewilderment. There was a long silence.

"So now you know!" Mrs. Melrose said, presently, returning to full
consciousness as naturally as she had before. "I told you, didn't I?"
she asked, faintly anxious.

"Don't bother now, Aunt Marianna," the girl begged in distress.
"To-morrow----"

"Louison," Mrs. Melrose said, "was Annie's French maid--very superior
girl!"

"I remember her--Theodore's wife," Chris said, eager to help her.

"And she was this girl's mother," Mrs. Melrose added, clasping Norma's
fingers. "You understand that, Chris?"

"Yes, darling--we understand!" Norma said, with a nod to Chris that he
was to humour her. But Chris looked only strangely troubled.

"Annie's poor baby lived--Kate brought it home from France, and we named
it Leslie," the invalid said, clearly. "I couldn't--I couldn't forget
it, Chris. I used to go see it--at Kate's. And then, when it was three,
I met Louison--poor girl, I had been cruel to her--and Theodore was far
off in California--dying, we knew. And I met Louison in Brooklyn. And I
had a sudden idea, Chris! I told her to go to Kate, and get Annie's
baby, and bring it to me as if it was her own. I told her to! I told her
to say that it was her baby--Theodore's baby. And she did, Chris, and I
paid her well for it. She brought Leslie here, and Annie never
knew--nobody ever knew! But I never knew that Louison had a baby of her
own, Chris--I never knew that! Louison hated me, and she never told me
she had a little girl. No--no--no, I never knew that!"

"Then Leslie--is--Annie's child by Mueller, the riding master!"