tears.

"It is of no use trying to speak lightly about it," she said. "I may as
well tell you that it is a very important matter, Hubert. I sent for you
to-day to tell you that we must part."

"Nonsense, Cynthia!"

"We must indeed! The worst is that we might have avoided all this
trouble--this misery--if I had been candid and open with you from the
first. If I had told you all about myself, you would perhaps never have
helped me--or at least--for I won't say that exactly--you would have
helped me from a distance, and never cared to see me or speak to me at
all."

"Of course you know that you are talking riddles, Cynthia."

"Yes, I know. But you will understand in a minute or two. I only want to
say, first, that I had no idea who--who you were."

"Who I am, dear? Myself, Hubert Lepel, and nobody else."

"And cousin"--she brought the words out with difficulty--"cousin to the
Vanes of Beechfield."

"Well, what objection have you to the Vanes of Beechfield?"

"They have the right to object to me; and so have you. Do you remember
the evening when I spoke to you in the street outside the theatre? Did
it never cross your mind that you had seen and spoken to me before? You
asked me once if I knew a girl called Jane Wood. Now don't you remember
me? Now don't you know my name?"

Hubert had risen to his feet. His face was ghastly pale; but there was a
horror in it which even Cynthia could not interpret aright.

"You--you, Jane Wood!" he gasped. "Don't trifle with me, Cynthia! You
are Cynthia West!"

"Cynthia Janet Westwood, known at St. Elizabeth's as Janie Wood."

"You--you are Westwood's child?"

She silently bowed her head.

"Oh, Cynthia, Cynthia, if you had but told me before!"

He sank down into his chair again, burying his face in his hands with
his elbows on his knees. There was a look of self-abasement, of shame
and sorrow in his attitude inexplicable to Cynthia. Finding that he did
not speak, she took up her tale again in low, uneven tones.

"I knew that I ought to tell you. I said that I would tell you
everything before--before we were married, if ever it came to that. I
ought to have done so at once; but it was so difficult. They had changed
my name when I went to school so that nobody should know; they told me
that it would be a disgrace to have it known. I ran away from St.
Elizabeth's because I had been fool enough to let it out. I could not
face the girls when they knew that--that my father was