Then he added, with a little smile of amusement, while there was an expression of earnest entreaty in his eyes: “My dear, I think if I had another grandson I should never dare judge his bride until I knew her personally. I like and admire you just as you are, independent of your being a Douglas. Now shall we shake hands and bury the hatchet?” She looked up, and their eyes met. She regarded him earnestly for a minute. With a witching smile and gesture, she laid both her hands in his outstretched palm, and said, archly: “I had made up my mind to forgive you for Adrian’s sake, but I begin to think I shall have to for your own, and,” she added, in a lower tone, the tears springing to her eyes, “because auntie loved you so well.” “Did she?” he said, eagerly; “tell me about her.” He led her to a seat, and Brownie, never weary of talking of her dear one who was gone, rehearsed all the sad story which Miss Mehetabel had told her on that last day of her life. When she had told him about the note which Miss Capel had undertaken to deliver his lordship became greatly excited: “Ah, the treacherous girl! I almost suspected it when it was too late, and but for her I should never have known the sorrow and bitterness I have suffered all these weary years. Oh, Meta, Meta,” he cried, with almost a sob, “it was too hard when I loved you so! It has been a terrible wound, and one that has never healed. I cannot even hear her name spoken without its ringing forth from memory’s chords notes of anguish. I would not wrong the living,” he hastened to say, “for I honor my wife as a pure and noble woman, and she has ever been a kind and gentle helpmeet, but that love was the love of a lifetime, which nothing could kill. And she died, you say,” he continued, wiping the tears which he could not stay, “only last September, true to the last. Oh, fool and blind that I was, not to have crushed my pride and forced my way into her presence! But,” and he started fiercely to his feet and began pacing the room, “I will have it out even at this late day with that traitoress, Lady Randal. I will know what was in that note yet, and she shall know that her perfidy is discovered.” “My lord, I have the note,” interrupted Brownie, and she told him how she had gained possession of it, thinking it no wrong to take it under the circumstances. “It was perfectly justifiable, and will you give it to me?” he begged. “Yes, I will get it for you before you go.” Then he asked her about the mystery of the jewels, and how Isabel Coolidge happened to have them, and she had to repeat all the circumstances regarding them. “You shall have them again,” he cried. “I can prove that every one belongs to you. That girl shall give them up, and I only hope that Sir Charles will have his eyes opened before it is too late.” Brownie smiled as she thought how many had expressed that wish, and just at that moment Adrian appeared with Lady Dunforth.