"For her sake! the words Carr used. But, Anne, surely there were two sides to the question. If I disclosed the facts, and put her away from me, what was she? Besides, the law might be against me--Scotland's iniquitous law; but in Heaven's sight _Maude_ was my wife, not the other. So I temporized, hoping that time might bring about a relief, for Dr. Mair told me that Miss Waterlow's health was failing. However, she lived on, and--" Lady Hartledon started up, her face blanching. "Is she not dead now? Was she living when you married me? Am _I_ your wife?" He could hardly help smiling. His calm touch reassured her. "Do you think you need ask, Anne? The next year Dr. Mair called upon me again--it was the evening before the boy was christened; he had come to London on business of his own. To my dismay, he told me that a change for the better was appearing in Miss Waterlow's mental condition; and he thought it likely she might be restored to health. Of course, it increased the perplexities and my horror, had that been needed; but the hope or fear, or what you like to call it, was not borne out. Three years later, the doctor came to me for the third and final time, to bring me the news that Agnes was dead." As the relief had been to him then, so did it almost seem now to Anne. A sigh of infinite pain broke from her. She had not seen where all this was tending. "Imagine, if you can, what it was for me all those years with the knowledge daily and nightly upon me that the disgraceful truth might at any moment come out to Maude--to her children, to the world! Living in the dread of arrest myself, should the man Gordon show himself on the scene! And now you see what it is that has marred my peace, and broken the happiness of our married life. How could I bear to cross those two deeply-injured children, who were ever rising up in judgment against me? How take our children's part against them, little unconscious things? It seemed that I had always, daily, hourly, some wrong to make up to them. The poor boy was heir to Hartledon in the eyes of the world; but, Anne, your boy was the true heir." "Why did you not tell me?--all this time!" "I could not. I dared not. You might not have liked to put Reginald out of his rights." "Oh, Percival; how can you so misjudge me?" she asked, in tones of pain. "I would have guarded the secret as jealously as you. I must still do it for Maude." "Poor Maude!" he sighed. "Her mother forgave me before she died--" "She knew it, then?" "Yes. She learned--" Sounds of drumming on the door, and the countess-dowager's voice, stopped Lord Hartledon. "I had better face her," he said, as he unlocked it. "She will arouse the household." Wild, intemperate, she met him with a volley of abuse that startled Lady Hartledon. He got her to a sofa, and gently held her down there. "It's what I've been obliged to do all along," said Thomas Carr; "I don't believe she has heard ten words of my explanation."