“His reason told him that Richard Forrester would gladly have absolved him from all promise of secrecy regarding her birth, rather than that her life should be ruined, as it was likely to be upon discovering that you were his son; but his enmity toward you made him prefer to sacrifice her happiness rather than forego his revenge.” “What a disposition for a person to cherish! It is beyond my comprehensions,” Earle said, gravely, and thinking sorrowfully of the dying man upstairs, whose whole life had been ruined by giving the rein to his evil passions. “It would seem, too, as if there ought to have been some natural instinct in his heart that would at least have prevented him from doing you such despite, even if he bore you no love,” madam returned. “But, as he says,” she added, “he has been his own worst enemy—out of his own folly alone have sprung all his misfortunes and disappointments.” “That is true, and is it not often proved that those who seek to wrong others only injure themselves the most in the end?” Earle asked. “It is, indeed,” madam returned, sadly; then she said, rising: “I believe I have told you all now. I think Editha must be awake by this time. I will go and tell her of your arrival. You will find her a little worn and pale perhaps, but not a whit less lovely than she was a year ago.” Madam’s smile was full of beauty and tenderness whenever she spoke of her newly-found daughter, and Earle thought she was a very handsome woman. She left the room, and he sat thinking over all the strange incidents of the past six years—yea, all the strange incidents of his whole life. The story he had just listened to seemed wonderful to him. He could scarcely credit the good news that was to blot out all the dark past and make his future so bright and full of joy. Notwithstanding he had come to a house upon which death had set its seal, and he could not help a feeling of sorrow for the man so near the bounds of eternity, yet his heart was bounding with a new and blessed hope. He no longer needed to school himself to calmly endure the ordeal of meeting Editha; there was no need now to force back with an iron will all the natural impulses of his heart. She was not his sister, and he knew well now why his whole soul had revolted against the fiendish lie with which Sumner Dalton had sought to crush him. Editha would be his wife now; she would go back with him to Wycliffe when they should be needed here no longer; she would go there to reign as his honored and beautiful mistress, and he would have the right to love her; there was no sin now in loving her as fondly as his great, true heart prompted him to do. His face grew luminous as he sat there and waited for her; his eyes lost their heavy look of forced endurance, and softened into rare, sweet tenderness.