ord for an afternoon, just to be
unblackened at night?"

"This is good sense," said the Colonel, "and the thing is a mystery. Can
you solve it?"

"You may be sure I can--and woe is me--I must."

She hung her head, and her hands worked convulsively.

"Sir," said she, after a pause, "suppose I could not tell the truth to
all those people without subjecting the man I loved--and I love him now
dearer than ever--to a terrible punishment for a mere folly done years
ago, which now has become something much worse than folly--but how?
Through his unhappy love for me!"

"These are dark words," said the Colonel. "How am I to understand them?"

"Dark as they are," said Grace, "do they not explain my conduct in that
bitter trial better than Julia Clifford's guesses do, better than
anything that has occurred since?"

"Mrs. Walter Clifford," said the Colonel, with a certain awe, "I see
there is something very grave here, and that it affects my son. I begin
to know you. You waited till he was out of danger; but now you do me the
honor to confide something to me which the world will not drag out of
you. So be it; I am a man and a soldier. I have faced cavalry, and I can
face the truth. What is it?"

"Colonel Clifford," said Grace, trembling like a leaf, "the truth will
cut you to the heart, and will most likely kill me. Now that I have gone
so far, you may well say, 'Tell it me;' but the words once past my lips
can never be recalled. Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?"

The struggle overpowered her, and almost for the first time in her life
she turned half faint and yet hysterical; and such was her condition that
the brave Colonel was downright alarmed, and rang hastily for his people.
He committed her to the charge of Mrs. Milton. It seemed cruel to demand
any further explanation from her just then; so brave a girl, who had gone
so far with him, would be sure to tell him sooner or later. Meantime he
sat sombre and agitated, oppressed by a strange sense of awe and mystery,
and vague misgiving. While he brooded thus, a footman brought him in a
card upon a salver: "The Reverend Alleyn Meredith." "Do I know this
gentleman?" said the Colonel.

"I think not, sir," said the footman.

"What is he like?"

"Like a beneficed clergyman, sir."

Colonel Clifford was not in the humor for company; but it was not his
habit to say not at home when he was at home; and being a magistrate, he
never knew when a stranger sent in his card,