“Yes; what you say is true—I am the George Sumner who enticed Marion Vance into secret marriage. I got Austin Osgood to perform the ceremony—a clever fellow, and always up to all sorts of mischief; but the scamp has never shown his face to me since, for some unaccountable reason. I must confess I did feel a little squeamish and sorry for the girl when she took on so; but when I found how she had deceived me, I had not a regret—I gloried in her shame, and the shame she must entail upon her offspring. I gloried in the suffering I knew she would experience, as day after day she looked upon her child and thought of the noble inheritance she had deprived it of by her folly. A week after she came to me one of my friends told me the story of Marion Vance’s dishonor—how that all the world knew then that she had been driven from her father’s house in disgrace. It was then that I learned _who_ she was and _what_ I had lost. I left everything and began to search for her, resolved I would make her marry me, so that our child might be born in wedlock and inherit the estates of Wycliffe. But she had hidden herself so securely that she could not be found, and, when the time had passed that must elapse before her child was born, I gave up the search and returned to America. But I had learned to hate her with all the strength of my nature, and if by any means I had ever encountered her, I would have crushed her as relentlessly as I would crush a reptile. When I discovered that you were her son, I knew that through you I could doubtless make her suffer, and I meant to crush you, too. Now you know why I have been your bitter foe for all these years,” he concluded, with a look so baleful that Earle turned away in disgust. “My mother is forever beyond your reach—she died more than seven years ago,” he said, solemnly. A slight shiver disturbed Sumner Dalton’s frame, but he made no reply. “How did you discover that I was Marion Vance’s child?” Earle asked, after a few moments of silence. Mr. Dalton laughed, but a feeling of shame made him color, notwithstanding. “Perhaps you remember leaving a package of papers with Richard Forrester for safe keeping while you were absent for three years,” he said, recklessly. “He left them with Editha when he died, and, I being somewhat curious to know what was so carefully guarded by so large a seal, I took the liberty to inspect them, little thinking that I should discover so _near_ and _dear_ a relative by so doing.” Editha here started up, and, lifting her white face from her trembling hands, cried out: “Shame!”