twood, in a sullen tone. "I did not know
the man, and I did not look at him. All I know is that he has murdered
me as well as Mr. Vane, and blasted the life of my innocent child. And I
shall pray God night and morning as long as the breath is in my body to
punish him, and to bring shame and sorrow on himself and all that he
loves, as he has brought shame and sorrow on me and mine."

Then he turned his face to the wall and would say no more.

CHAPTER II.

Beechfield Hall was the name of the old manor-house in which the Vanes
had lived for many generations. The present head of the family, General
Richard Vane, was a man of fifty-five, a childless widower, whose
interests centred in the management of his estate and the welfare of his
brother Sydney and Sydney's wife and child. In the natural course of
events, Sydney would eventually have succeeded to the property. It had
always been a matter of regret to the General that neither he nor his
brother had a son; and, when Sydney's life was prematurely cut short,
the General's real grief for his brother's loss was deepened and
embittered by the thought that the last chance of an heir was gone, and
that the family name--one of the most ancient in the county--would soon
become extinct, for a daughter did not count in the General's
meditation. It did not occur to his mind as within the limits of
possibility that he himself should marry again. He had always hoped that
Sydney--twenty years younger than himself, and the husband of a fair
and blooming wife--would have a son to bear his name. Hitherto the
Sydney Vanes had been unfortunate in their offsprings. Of five beautiful
children only one had lived beyond the first few months of babyhood--and
that one was a girl! But father, mother, and uncle had gone on hoping
for better things. Now it seemed likely that little Enid, the
nine-year-old daughter, would be the last of the Vanes, and that with
the General the name of the family would finally die out.

Beechfield Hall had long been known as one of the pleasantest houses in
the county. It was a large red-brick, comfortable-looking mansion, made
picturesque by a background of lofty trees, and by the ivy and Virginia
creeper and clematis in which it was embowered, rather than by the style
of its architecture. Along the front of the building ran a wide terrace,
with stone balustrades and flights of steps at either end leading to the
flower garden, which sloped down to an ornam