. Now curse me if you will, as your father did long years ago."

He fell back on the sofa, and buried his face in his hands with a moan
of intolerable pain.

There came a long silence. Cynthia did not move; she also had hidden her
face.

"Oh," she said at last, "I do not know what to do! My poor father--my
poor father! Think of the shame and anguish that he went through! Oh,
how could you bear to let him suffer so?" And then she wept bitterly and
unrestrainedly; and Hubert sat with his head bowed in his hands.

But after a time she became calm; and then, without looking up, she
said, in a low voice--

"I should like to hear it all now. Tell me how it happened."

He started and removed his hands from his face. It was so haggard, so
miserable, that Cynthia, as she glanced at him, could not forbear an
impulse of pity. But she averted her head and would not look at him
again.

"You must tell me everything now," she said.

And so he told the story. He found it hard to begin; but as he went on,
a certain relief came to him, in spite of shame and sorrow, at the
disburthening himself of his secret. He did not spare himself. He told
the tale very fully, and, little by little, it seemed to Cynthia that
she began to understand his life, his character, his very soul, as she
had never understood them before. She understood, but she did not love.

The confession left her cold; her father's wrongs had turned her heart
to stone.

"And now," he said, when he had finished his story, "you can fetch your
father and clear him in the eyes of the world as soon as you like. I
will take any punishment that the law allots me. But I think that I
shall not have to bear it long. Even a life sentence ends one day, thank
God!"

Then Cynthia spoke.

"You think," she said very coldly, "that I shall tell your story--that I
shall denounce you to the police?"

"As you please, Cynthia," he answered, with a sadness born of despair.

"You throw the burden on me!" she said. "You have thrown your burdens on
other people's shoulders all your life, it seems. But now you must bear
your own." She rose and moved away from him. "I shall not accuse you.
Your confession is safe enough with me. You forget that I--I loved you
once. I cannot give you up to justice even for my father's sake. You
must manage the matter for yourself."

"Cynthia," he cried hoarsely--"Cynthia, be merciful!"

"Had you any mercy for my father?" she asked him, looking at him