scene I never can forget. Sometimes in the dead hours of the night I am

startled awake by the fancy that I am again going through it. I wonder, after the successive shocks of those few weeks, that I now live to give you the miserable recital.”

Again he paced to and fro, as if in almost uncontrollable emotion. This time, on again pausing, he sank into the chair as if almost exhausted.

His mother made no sign. The bitterness of her anger and disappointment exceeded, if that were possible, his darkest forebodings.

She continued to tap her foot on the carpet, and her jeweled fingers twined and twisted in one another as if they must snap. This time she addressed no inquiry to him, but sat a silent image of despair and mortified anger.

“Let me make an end of my story as quickly as I can,” Paul said, in subdued tones. He heartily wished now he had let it still remain untold until such a time as he might be driven to confess it. “La Lucia, after storming and raging, registered a mighty oath never to see my face again if she could help herself, never to carry into effect the vows she had made at the altar--to hold herself free as if she had never seen me. I can hardly tell you what she said. She ironically thanked me for having helped her to escape from one kind of slavery, though she found herself trammeled in another, and for my care of her during the journey, and for the consideration and delicate courtesy I had shown her in her unprotected state, and then swept out of the room. The next thing I heard of my lady wife was that she had carried herself and all her belongings off from the hotel. I never heard of her again until Europe was ringing with her name and fame.”

“Her name?” repeated Mrs. Desfrayne mechanically.

“The name I had first known her under.”

“And that was?”

“Lucia Guiscardini.”

Mrs. Desfrayne sprang from her seat, and began pacing to and fro in her turn.

“Oh! it is too much--too much!” she cried. “Ungrateful, wicked, unloving son, is it thus you have returned the deep, unwearying affection I have ever cherished for you?”

“The most bitter reproaches you can level at me can never equal in intensity those which I have heaped on my own head,” Paul replied.

“You must have been mad to let yourself be entrapped in this way,” Mrs. Desfrayne went on. “I can scarcely believe it is true. You are, then, really bound to this--this singing woman who cares nothing for you, who seems to disdain you and all belonging to you. Oh! it is incredible. And what about Miss Turquand?”

“I know not,” answered Paul wearily. “I wish to Heaven I had never seen or heard of the eccentric old fogy who chose to imagine himself under some debt of gratitude to me, for then----”

“Folly!” angrily interrupted his mother. “Better wish you had never seen this woman who owns you--or that you had not been so----”

She shrugged her shoulders with an expression indescribable.

There was a brief pause.

“It would be as ridiculous as it would be undignified on my part to display any resentment against you,” Mrs. Desfrayne resumed. “Of course, you had a right to please yourself: though married in haste, you are repenting at leisure. But what are you going to do?”

“In what way?”

“Good heavens! so long as that woman lives, there is not a ray of happiness for you.”

“I know it. It is a heavy penalty to pay for those few weeks of forgetfulness, of lunacy, of fever; but hardly so heavy to bear as the loss of the love and esteem of the only woman in the world I ever loved, or am likely to love.”

“Whom are you talking about?” hastily demanded Mrs. Desfrayne, a new spasm of jealousy seizing her heart.

But Paul would not answer.

He rested his arms on the back of the chair, and laid his head on the support thus made. This attitude brought vividly back to his mother’s mind the days of his childhood and youth, when he had been all her own. How often had she seen him thus, when he had been guilty of some youthful fault or folly, and was penitent, yet half-afraid he should not easily find pardon!

Mrs. Desfrayne’s heart was irresistibly drawn toward her boy. With a soft, gentle touch, she laid one of her white, jeweled hands on his head.

“Do you speak of me?” she asked. “Ah! Paul, it is ten thousand pities that, having committed this fatal mistake, you did not confide in me before. What a miserable future is before you; but you must not give way. It must be borne. I do not reproach you. Nay, I will give you such comfort as I can.”

Paul caught her hands, and covered them with kisses.

“Would that I had--would that I had told you, mother!” he cried, looking up into her face with his open, candid eyes, from which some of the black care had melted. “That terrible secret has stood between me and you like some malignant black specter.”

“I dimly felt its presence now and again,” said his mother, “though I could not believe it possible you could deceive me. But tell me, what do you mean to do?”

“Nothing. What can I do?”

“True.”

“As for this young lady, why, I am sorry she will be driven to think ill of me; but any explanation would be clearly impossible. She will have a handsome fortune in any case, and probably marry some one infinitely more to her taste than I should be. In two or three days my leave of absence expires, and I go to rejoin my regiment near Gloucester.”

“I no sooner see you again than you are snatched away. It is hard, Paul.”

“Just at this juncture perhaps it will be better for me to be out of your way. You will think more kindly of your absent son and his faults and follies than you might of----”

“Come. Let us put away that painful subject, and not recur to it unless necessary. Of course, it is of no earthly use your giving another thought to this Miss Turquand.”

“I think it would be as well to confide my exact position to the lawyer who drew up the will, and who introduced me to the young lady yesterday evening--Amberley. I think I mentioned his name to you. He might be able to give me a dispassionate word of advice.”

Mrs. Desfrayne considered.

“You see, my dearest mother, he would be able to look at the matter from a mere business point of view, as he has no interest in the affair.”

“Perhaps,” Mrs. Desfrayne slowly said, “it might be as well to consult him. I think I have met him at Lady Quaintree’s. Yes, it would perhaps be best to speak to him about your most unhappy position.”

Captain Desfrayne rose, and went over to his mother’s little writing-table. As if afraid to trust to his continuance of purpose, he sat down and wrote a few lines to Frank Amberley, asking him to make an appointment, as he desired to consult him on a matter of importance.

He showed the note to his mother, enclosed it then in an envelope, addressed and stamped it, leaving it on the desk ready for the post.

The ordeal he had so dreaded had been passed through. The terrible secret had been revealed. Now he wished he had spoken of it long ago.

“You are going to Gloucester? When?”

“On Wednesday. The regiment is stationed at Holston, some miles from Gloucester.”

“Holston? Why, is not that near the place where Flore Hall is situated?”

“Yes. I look forward to going over the old house once more as one of the few pleasures in store for me down there. I feel thankful to get away now.”

Neither Captain Desfrayne nor his mother knew that the old Hall in which he had spent so many days of his childhood had been left to Lois Turquand by her dead benefactor.

The storm had passed, leaving but little trace behind.

Mrs. Desfrayne easily persuaded her son to remain for the rest of the evening with her.

On Wednesday Captain Desfrayne was to go to Gloucester.

On Monday he was to visit Madam Guiscardini, according to the appointment made in the gardens, though it seemed worse than useless to renew the pain and distress he had suffered that day.

His mother was passionately averse to his seeing the woman who had so fatally entrapped him.

“Nay, mother; it will be best to ascertain clearly how we are to spend our future lives,” Paul said. “We must come to a clear understanding some way.”

On reaching home, he found a letter from Frank Amberley, dated that morning, before his own had been written, asking if it would be convenient for him to attend on Tuesday a meeting of the partners of the firm, to go more fully into the details of business having reference to Miss Turquand’s affairs.

Paul Desfrayne saw it would not be so easy to shrink from his duties as sole trustee and executor to the beautiful Lois as he had hoped it might be.

As he drifted into a broken, uneasy slumber that night, his last thoughts turned upon Lois, sincerely trusting it might not be necessary for the young girl to attend the meeting.

Why should he have this fear--this undercurrent of aversion to encountering his beautiful charge?

He had seen her only twice. He persuaded himself she was cold and beautiful as an antique statue. He argued to himself that a world-worn, half-weary man of thirty could scarcely be acceptable to a young girl of eighteen. He chose to feel certain that being dictated to in her choice must of itself suffice to render him unwelcome.

And yet he shrank with vague terror at the chance of being again exposed to the danger of being obliged to look into those soft, crystal-bright eyes, of glancing even for a moment into those untroubled depths, where lay mirrored the most perfect purity, loyalty, and truth.