ould not allow Peter to
even utter his boy's name.

"I'm sure," she said vehemently from where she stood by the fire, "he
was not a bad man. _I_ remember Hugh very well, and I remember nothing
that was not lovable and good about him;" the truth of which was that
she had a vague recollection of a freckle-faced boy, who had tormented
her and her kittens day and night, and who had suddenly disappeared out
of her life. But she meant to comfort her father, and she did it.

"You've a good, warm heart, Kitty. I did not know that anybody but me
remembered the lad."

She snuggled down on the floor beside him, drawing his hand over her
hair. Usually there is great comfort in the very touch of a woman like
Kitty. But Peter's hand rested passively on her head: her cooing and
patting could not touch his trouble to-day.

"Your mother will need you, my dear," he said at last, as soon as that
lady's soft steady step was heard in the hall. Kitty understood and left
him alone.

"Mother," she said, coming into the chamber where Mrs. Guinness, her
pink cheeks pinker from the rain, lay back in her easy-chair, her
slippered feet on the fender--"mother, there is a question I wish to ask
you."

"Well, Catharine?"

"When did Hugh die? How do you know that he is dead?"

Mrs. Guinness sat erect and looked at her in absolute silence.
Astonishment and anger Kitty had expected from her at her mention of the
name, but there was a certain terror in her face which was
unaccountable.

"What do you know of Hugh Guinness? I never wished that his name should
cross your lips, Catharine."

"I know very little. But I have a reason for wishing to know when and
how he died. It is for father's sake," she added, startled at the
increasing agitation which her mother could not conceal.

Still, Mrs. Guinness did not reply. She was not a superstitious woman:
she felt no remorse about her treatment of her stepson. There had been
evil tongues, even in the church, to lay his ruined life at her door,
and to say that bigotry and sternness had driven him to debauchery and a
drunkard's death. She knew she had done her duty: she liked best to
think of herself as a mother in Israel. Yet there had always been a
dull, mysterious terror which linked Hugh Guinness and Catharine
together. It was there he would revenge himself. Some day he would put
out his dead hand from the grave to work the child's destruction. She
had reasoned and laughed at her own folly in the