At that word the mother started up from her reclining position, and looked at the speaker fixedly. ‘Muriel!’ she exclaimed, ‘I did not know you had ever seen her.’ ‘I have seen her and spoken to her. I met her one evening in the copse at the bottom of the garden, and talked to her.’ ‘What did she talk about?’ ‘You—and—her child.’ This was a random shot, but it hit the mark. ‘Great heaven! she spoke to you of that? A secret of years gone by, which it has been the business of my life to hide; which I have thought of through many a wakeful night upon my weary pillow. And she told you—a stranger?’ ‘I spoke to her about you, but at the word mother she shrank from me with a look of horror. “Do not speak to me of my mother,” she cried, “what has she done with my child?” That speech made a profound impression upon me, as you may imagine. The remembrance of that speech emboldens me to ask for your confidence to-day.’ ‘I saved that unhappy girl’s good name,’ said Mrs. Trevanard. ‘There you doubtless did a mother’s duty. But was it the maintenance of her character which occasioned the loss of her reason?’ ‘I don’t know. It is a miserable story from first to last. But since you know so much I may as well trust you with the rest; and if, when you have heard all, you think there has been a wrong done that needs redress, you will perhaps help me to bring about that redress.’ ‘Be assured of my uttermost help, if you will but trust me fully.’ ‘You shall hear all,’ said Mrs. Trevanard, decisively. She took a little of some cooling drink which always stood ready for her on the table by her easy chair, and then began the story of a family sorrow. ‘You have seen Muriel,’ she said, ‘and you have perceived in her wasted countenance some faint traces of former beauty. At eighteen years of age she was a noble creature. She had a face which pleased and attracted every one who saw her. Her schoolmistress wrote me letters about the admiration she had excited on the breaking-up day, when the gentry, whose daughters attended the school, met to witness the distribution of prizes. I was weak enough to shed tears of joy over those letters—weak enough to be proud of gifts which were destined to become a snare of the evil one. Muriel was clever as well as beautiful. She was always at the top of her class, always the winner of prizes. Her father and I used to read her letters again and again, and I think we both worked all the harder, looking forward to the day when Muriel would marry some gentleman farmer, and would require a handsome portion. We were quite content with our own position as simple working people, but we had given Muriel the education of a lady, and we counted upon her marrying above her station.’ ‘“After all, she’s a Trevanard,” her father used to say, “and the Trevanards come of as good a stock as any in Cornwall—not even barring the Penwyns.”