“Here Eugenie stopped to breathe, for she had wrought herself up to such a pitch of frenzy that she seemed in danger of apoplexy, and clutched at the fastenings of her dress about her throat as if to loosen them. Haverleigh saw the strange look in her face, and how she gasped for breath, but was himself too much paralyzed to move. At the mention of Agatha, the sweet rose from Normandy, whom he had almost loved, and whose memory was still green in his heart, he had thrown up both his hands and then sank into the chair, unable to stand any longer. That Agatha Wynde should have been the sister of Eugenie stunned him completely, and made him for a time forget even Anna and his child. At last, as the color faded from Eugenie’s face and she breathed more freely, he found voice to say: “‘Agatha your sister, yours! I never dreamed of that.’ “‘No, of course not, but you knew she was somebody’s darling, the white-haired old man’s who died with a curse of you on his lips. You lured the simple peasant-girl away, and told her you meant fair, and because she was pure, and innocent, and could not otherwise be won, you made believe marry her; but it was no marriage, no priest, and when she found it out she went raving mad and died.’ “Haverleigh might have taunted the woman with the fact that she had had something to do with the deception practiced upon Agatha, but she did not give him a chance, for she went on to accuse herself: “‘For this deed of blackness, I, too, was to blame, but I never dreamed it was my darling, for whom I would have died; never guessed it was she of whom I was so madly jealous, those days and nights when you left me so much, and I knew a younger, fairer face than mine attracted you. I was not fair then, for I knew of Agatha’s flight, and was hunting for her everywhere, and all the time you had her in Paris, and I working against her. Oh, Agatha, Agatha, sister, I’d give my life to have you back, but you are gone, and on that little grave in southern France I swore you should be avenged; and so——’ turning now to Haverleigh who sat with his face buried in his hands—‘and so I learned the story of the little American, and wrote to her friends, for I knew the mother was not dead, as you told her, Heaven only knows why! I wrote, I say, and the boy Fred started himself for France. Do you remember my telling you I had advertised for an English maid, and do you remember the _Fanny Shader_ of whom I thought so much? That was Frederick Strong, in girl’s attire.’