_General Wyatt._--"I authorised this knowledge on your part when I spoke to your friend, and before he went away he told me all he had said to you." _Bartlett_, in the first stages of petrifaction.--"Cummings?" _General Wyatt._--"Yes." _Bartlett._--"Told you that I knew whom I was like?" _General Wyatt._--"Yes." _Bartlett_, very gently.--"Then I think that man will be lost for keeping his conscience _too_ clean. Cummings has invented a new sin." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"James, James! You told me that Mr. Bartlett didn't know." _General Wyatt_, contritely.--"I let you think so, Margaret; I didn't know what else to do." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, James!" _Constance._--"Oh, papa!" She turns with bowed head from her father's arms, and takes refuge in her mother's embrace. General Wyatt, released, fetches a compass round about the parlour, with a face of intense dismay. He pauses in front of his wife. _General Wyatt._--"Margaret, you must know the worst now." _Mrs. Wyatt_, in gentle reproach, while she softly caresses Constance's hair.--"Oh, is there anything _worse_, James?" _General Wyatt_, hopelessly.--"Yes: I'm afraid I have been to blame." _Bartlett._--"General Wyatt, let me retire. I"-- _General Wyatt._--"No, sir. This concerns you, too, now. Your destiny has entangled you with our sad fortunes, and now you must know them all." _Constance_, from her mother's shoulder.--"Yes, stay,--whatever it is. If you care for me, nothing can hurt you any more, now." _General Wyatt._--"Margaret,--Constance! If I have been mistaken in what I have done, you must try somehow to forgive me; it was my tenderness for you both misled me, if I erred. Sir, let me address my defence to you. You can see the whole matter with clearer eyes than we." At an imploring gesture from Bartlett, he turns again to Mrs. Wyatt. "Perhaps you are right, sir. Margaret, when I had made up my mind that the wretch who had stolen our child's heart was utterly unfit and unworthy"-- _Constance_, starting away from her mother with a cry.--"Ah, you _did_ drive him from me then! I knew, I knew it! And after all these days and weeks and months that seem years and centuries of agony, you tell me that it was _you_ broke my heart! No, no, I never _will_ forgive you, father! Where is he? Tell me that! Where is my husband--the husband you robbed me of? Did you kill him, when you chose to crush my life? Is he dead? If he's living I will find him wherever he is. No distance and no danger shall keep me from him. I'll find him and fall down before him, and implore _him_ to forgive you, for I never can! Was this your tenderness for me--to drive him away, and leave me to the pitiless humiliation of believing myself deserted? Oh, great tenderness!" _General Wyatt_, confronting her storm with perfect quiet.--"No, I will give better proof of my tenderness than that." He takes from his pocket-book a folded paper which he hands to his wife: "Margaret, do you know that writing?"