"I did not tell you before," said Lady Alice, slowly, "because I was under a promise not to do so. I have been obliged to keep you in the dark about your future for many a long year, Lesley, and the concealment has always weighed upon my mind. You must forgive me, dearest, for this: I did not see the consequence of my promise when I made it first." "What promise was it, mamma?" "To let you leave me for a time, my dear: to let you go from me--to let you choose your own life--oh, it seems hard and cruel to me now." "Tell me," pleaded Lesley, whose heart was by this time beating with painful rapidity, "tell me all--quickly, mamma, and I promise----" "Promise nothing until you have heard what I have to say," said her mother, drawing back. "I want you to hear the story before you see your grandfather again: that is the reason why I begged the Mother to let me speak to you here, before you left the convent. I have been forced into my present line of action, Lesley: I never took it wilfully. You shall judge for yourself if it were likely that I----But I will not excuse myself beforehand. I can tell you all that is necessary for you to know in very few words; and the rest lies in your hands." Lady Alice's pale lips quivered as she spoke, but her eyes were dry and filled with a light which was singularly cold and stern. Lesley, kneeling still, looked up into her face, and, fascinated by what she saw there, remained motionless and mute. "I have not let you speak to me of your father," Lady Alice began, "because I did not know how to answer your questions truthfully. But now I must speak of him. You have thought of him sometimes?" "Yes." "And you have thought him dead?" "I thought so--yes." "But he is not dead," said Lady Alice, bitterly. "To my exceeding misfortune--and yours also--your father, Lesley, is alive." CHAPTER II. LADY ALICE'S STORY. The girl shrank back a little, but she did not remove her eyes from her mother's face. A great dread, however, had entered into them. A hot color leaped into her cheeks. Scarcely did she yet know what she dreaded; it was something intangible, too awful to be uttered--the terror of disgrace. But Lady Alice saw the look and interpreted it aright. "No, my darling," she said, "it is not _that_. It is nothing to be ashamed of--exactly. I do not accuse your father of any crime--unless it be a crime to have married a woman that he did not love, and to whom he was not suited, and to have been cruel--yes, cruel--to her and to her child." And then she burst into tears. "Mamma, dear mamma!" said Lesley, clasping her and sobbing out of sympathy, "it was a crime--worse than a crime--to be cruel to _you_." Lady Alice sobbed helplessly for a few minutes. Then she commanded herself by a great and visible effort and dried her eyes.