was remembered by Zillah many and many a time
in after years. At this moment the effect upon her was appalling. She
was dumb. A vague desire to avert his wrath arose in her heart. She
looked at him imploringly; but her look had no longer any power.

"Speak!" he said, impatiently, after waiting for a time. "Speak. Tell
me what it is that you have found; tell me what this thing is that
concerns me. Can it be any thing more than I have said?"

Zillah trembled. This sudden transformation--this complete change
from warm affection to icy coldness--from devoted love to iron
sternness--was something which she did not anticipate. Being thus
taken unawares, she was all unnerved and overcome. She could no
longer restrain herself.

"Oh, father!" she cried, bursting into tears, and flinging herself at
his feet in uncontrollable emotion. "Oh, father! Do not look at me
so--do not speak so to your poor Zillah. Have I any friend on earth
but you?"

She clasped his thin, white hands in hers, while hot tears fell upon
them. But the Earl sat unmoved, and changed not a muscle of his
countenance. He waited for a time, taking no notice of her anguish,
and then spoke, with no relaxation of the sternness of his tone.

"Daughter," said he, "do not become agitated. It was you yourself who
brought on this conversation. Let us end it at once. Show me the
papers of which you speak. You say that they are connected with
me--that they filled you with horror. What is it that you mean?
Something more than curiosity about the unhappy woman who was once my
wife has driven you to ask explanations of me. Show me the papers."

His tone forbade denial. Zillah said not a word. Slowly she drew from
her pocket those papers, heavy with fate, and, with a trembling hand,
she gave them to the Earl. Scarcely had she done so than she
repented. But it was too late. Beside, of what avail would it have
been to have kept them? She herself had begun this conversation; she
herself had sought for a revelation of this mystery. The end must
come, whatever it might be.

"Oh, father!" she moaned, imploringly.

"What is it?" asked the Earl.

"You knew my dear papa all his life, did you not, from his boyhood?"

"Yes," said the Earl, mechanically, looking at the papers which
Zillah had placed in his hand; "yes--from boyhood."

"And you loved and honored him?"

"Yes."

"Was there ever a time in which you lost sight of one another, or did
not know all about one anothe