"Yes," she replied, in a voice so hoarse and changed he could scarcely recognize it was her who had spoken; "when I tell you all, promise me you will not curse me; for I have sinned against you so bitterly that you will cry out to Heaven asking why I did not die long years ago, that the terrible secret I have kept so long might have been wrung from my lips." "Surely her ravings were taking a strange freak," he thought to himself; "yet he would be patient with her and humor her strange fancy." The quiet, gentle expression did not leave his face, and she took courage. "Master," she said, clasping her hands nervously together, "would it pain you to speak of the sweet, golden-haired young girl-bride who died on that terrible stormy night nearly seventeen years ago?" She saw his care-worn face grow white, and the lines of pain deepen around his mouth. "That is the most painful of all subjects to me," he said, slowly. "You know how I have suffered since that terrible night," he said shudderingly. "The double loss of my sweet young wife and her little babe has nearly driven me mad. I am a changed man, the weight of the cross I have had to bear has crushed me. I live on, but my heart is buried in the grave of my sweet, golden-haired Evalia and her little child. I repeat, it is a painful subject, still I will listen to what you have to say. I believe I owe my life to your careful nursing, when I was stricken with the brain fever that awful time." "It would have been better if I had let you die then, rather than live to inflict the blow which my words will give you. Oh, master!" she implored, "I did not know then what I did was a sin. I feared to tell you lest the shock might cost you your life. As time wore on, I grew so deadly frightened I dared not undo the mischief my silence had wrought. Remember, master, when you looked upon me in your bitterest, fiercest moments of agony, what I did was for _your_ sake; to save your bleeding heart one more pang. I have been a good and faithful woman all my life, faithful to your interests." "You have indeed," he responded, greatly puzzled as to what she could possibly mean. She tried to raise herself on her elbows, but her strength failed her, and she sunk back exhausted on the pillow. "Listen, Basil Hurlhurst," she said, fixing her strangely bright eyes upon his noble, care-worn face; "this is the secret I have carried in this bosom for nearly seventeen years: 'Your golden-haired young wife died on that terrible stormy night you brought her to Whitestone Hall;' but listen, Basil, '_the child did not!_' It was stolen from our midst on the night the fair young mother died." CHAPTER XXX.