your
father's sake. Now for yours, the truth must be proclaimed."

"Thank God! thank God!" murmured Philip, in a quivering voice, throwing
his arms round his brother, "We have no brand on our names, Sidney."

At those accents, so full of suppressed joy and pride, the mother felt
at once all that her son had suspected and concealed. She felt that
beneath his haughty and wayward character there had lurked delicate and
generous forbearance for her; that from his equivocal position his very
faults might have arisen; and a pang of remorse for her long sacrifice
of the children to the father shot through her heart. It was followed
by a fear, an appalling fear, more painful than the remorse. The proofs
that were to clear herself and them! The words of her husband, that last
awful morning, rang in her ear. The minister dead; the witness absent;
the register lost! But the copy of that register!--the copy! might not
that suffice? She groaned, and closed her eyes as if to shut out the
future: then starting up, she hurried from the room, and went straight
to Beaufort's study. As she laid her hand on the latch of the door, she
trembled and drew back. But care for the living was stronger at that
moment than even anguish for the dead: she entered the apartment; she
passed with a firm step to the bureau. It was locked; Robert Beaufort's
seal upon the lock:--on every cupboard, every box, every drawer, the
same seal that spoke of rights more valued than her own. But Catherine
was not daunted: she turned and saw Philip by her side; she pointed to
the bureau in silence; the boy understood the appeal. He left the
room, and returned in a few moments with a chisel. The lock was broken:
tremblingly and eagerly Catherine ransacked the contents; opened paper
after paper, letter after letter, in vain: no certificate, no will,
no memorial. Could the brother have abstracted the fatal proof? A word
sufficed to explain to Philip what she sought for; and his search was
more minute than hers. Every possible receptacle for papers in that
room, in the whole house, was explored, and still the search was
fruitless.

Three hours afterwards they were in the same room in which Philip had
brought Robert Beaufort's letter to his mother. Catherine was seated,
tearless, but deadly pale with heart-sickness and dismay.

"Mother," said Philip, "may I now read the letter?" Yes, boy; and decide
for us all. She paused, and examined his face as he read. He felt her