Mapleson, should have turned my back and fled from any circumstances. I have repented of my folly, too, because a duty has fallen upon me, since then, which made it imperative that I should find you; but of this I will speak again later. “What is it, Estelle?” he asked, as a heavy, shuddering sigh from his wife smote his ear; “has my story been too much for you? I fear it has. Perhaps I have been selfish and thoughtless in bringing you here before strangers to listen to all this, but it had to be told, and this interview must have taken place between us all. Forgive me for wounding you, and let me take you to your room; perhaps, though, you never will forgive me for the deception which I have practiced upon you.” He went up to her and laid his hand upon her shoulder with more of tenderness than he was in the habit of manifesting toward the proud, handsome woman. But she put him from her with a passionate gesture, in which, however, there was a pathetic air of appeal. She arose and stood before him, her face almost convulsed with agony. “Oh!” she cried, wringing her hands, “if you had only told me all this when you asked me to marry you; or, if I had been true to my womanhood, how much we both might have saved each other! Forgive you for your deception? oh! William, I have been tenfold more guilty than you.” CHAPTER XLV. MRS. MAPLESON’S CONFESSION. Colonel Mapleson regarded his wife as if he thought she had suddenly taken leave of her senses. August Huntress’ heart was stirred with compassion for the beautiful and imperious woman, for he realized full well the trial that lay before her, and could understand how humiliating it must be to have her sin find her out at this late day, when she had believed it buried forever. All these long years she, too, had treasured her secret, believing that no one save the strange physician who had attended her at the birth of her child, and those two who had adopted it, knew anything of that episode in her life, and that she had so successfully concealed her identity at the time that it could never be discovered. “What can you mean, Estelle?” demanded Colonel Mapleson, as soon as he could collect himself sufficiently to speak. Then, as he remembered how she had greeted Mr. Huntress, how overcome she had been at sight of him, he glanced sharply toward him and knew instantly, from the look of sympathy on his face, that he must be in some way associated with that mysterious deception of which his wife had spoken. “I mean,” the wretched woman returned, in a voice of despair, while she sank weekly back into her chair, “that the secret which you have kept concealed from me during all our married life cannot compare with what I have withheld from you; you simply hid the fact of an earlier marriage and the existence of a son, while I committed a _monstrous crime_ to conceal a like secret from you.”