“What is it, papa?” he said. “Is you sick, too, like mamma?” and the _mother_ looked through her boy’s eyes straight at the suffering husband, who recognized the look, and clasping his child and Edith’s in his arms, sobbed and wept over him just as he would have done had Edith really been dead and Arthur motherless. “Is you tyin’ for mamma? Don’t; she’ll det well. Dirtie and the doctor will ture her. Is you tyin’ for her?” Arthur said; and with sobs which rent his very heart, Colonel Schuyler answered: “Yes, Arthur, I’m crying for her,—for her,—your mother. Oh, Edith! my lost Edith!” His tears poured in torrents now, and did him good, for the pressure around his heart gave way, the blood flowed more slowly through his veins, and the humming ceased in his ears, as he strained Arthur to his bosom and covered him with the kisses he meant as a farewell to the mother. He could never touch her false lips again, but he could kiss her child, and he fondled and wept over him, and then bidding him go away, and locking the door upon him, went back to the battle he was fighting between justice and inclination. What should he do? What ought he to do? Should he show the letter to Edith, and, upbraiding her with her duplicity, live henceforth apart from her, as one he never could trust again? or should he keep his knowledge to himself, and try to act as if nothing had happened, hoping that some time she would herself tell him the truth, and why it had so long been withheld? He could not decide then; he was in no condition to think clearly of anything, except that his Edith, whom he had taken for a pure, innocent young maiden, had been a wife and mother, and never let him know it. What her motives had been he could readily guess. She wanted his money and name, and the position he could give her, and if she told him all she feared the result. This was the reason, he said, and yet when he remembered many things in the past, he could not reconcile the two, or reason clearly about anything. “I must go away by myself and think it out alone,” he thought, and glancing at his watch, and seeing there was yet time for the down train to New York, he rose, and going to the door of Edith’s room, knocked softly, and asked Gertie to come out a moment to him. “I am going away for a day or two, or three at the most,” he said. “Mrs. Schuyler is out of danger, and as in her present state she is more quiet without me, I shall not be needed for a little time, and leave her in your care. I know I can trust you in everything. You have been faithful to us, Gertie!”