, that it was on her account you visited the house
so often. I had been so petted and spoiled since entering society that
I thought you were kind to her simply because honour forbade you to be
too kind to me; and under this delusion _I confided my folly to
Dorothy_.

"You will have many a talk with her in the future, and some day she may
succeed in proving to you that it was vanity and not badness of heart
which led me to misunderstand your feelings. Having repressed my own
impulses so long, I saw in your reticence the evidences of a like
struggle; and when, immediately upon my break with Mr. Sinclair, you
entered here and said the words you did----Well, we have finished with
this subject for ever.

"The explanations which I gave below of the part I played in my aunt's
death were true. I only omitted one detail, which you may consider a
very important one. The fact which paralysed my hand and voice when I
saw her lift the drop of death to her lips was this: I had meant to die
by this drop myself, in Dorothy's room, and with Dorothy's arms about
me. This was my secret--a secret which no one can blame me for keeping
as long as I could, and one which I should hardly have the courage to
disclose to you now if I had not already parted with it to the coroner,
who would not credit my story till I had told him the whole truth."

"Gilbertine," I urged, for I saw her fingers closing upon the knob she
had held lightly till now, "do not go till I have said this. A young
girl does not always know the demands of her own nature. The heart you
have ignored is one in a thousand. Do not let it slip from you. God
never gives a woman such a love twice."

"I know it," she murmured, and turned the knob.

I thought she was gone, and let the sigh which had been labouring at my
breast have vent, when I caught one last word whispered from the
threshold:

"Throw back the shutters and let in the light. Dorothy is coming. I am
going now to call her."

An hour had passed, the hour of hours for me, for in it the sun of my
happiness rose full-orbed, and Dorothy and I came to understand each
other. We were sitting hand in hand in this blessed little boudoir, when
suddenly she turned her sweet face toward me and gently remarked:

"This seems like selfishness on our part; but Gilbertine insisted. Do
you know what she is doing now? Helping old Mrs. Cummings and holding
Mrs. Barnstable's baby while her maid packs. She will work like that all
day,