“If _he_ understands,” said Lydia, dropping down in a chair in the mingled exhaustion and relief of having at last had her say, “I will tell you who I am. You don’t know the meaning, but I am sure he will know. Oh, Mrs. Harry, it is so simple a test! Will you not try it? If he does not understand no harm will be done, and you can judge of it for yourself. If he knows what it means you will soon know all about me.” She began to cry, with little tremulous laughs between, in her agitation. She was entirely overcome by the excitement of the crisis--so near finding out, so sure, and yet still a little cloud of suspense and uncertainty between. Rita stood and looked at her--her rival was it? who was it?--with a tremor of wonder and rising excitement, and even a sympathy which nature exacted, which she was most unwilling to bestow. Then reluctantly she went out of the room, slowly and carefully closing the door behind her, and walking along the corridor as if counting every step she took. It was the last struggle of her instinctive opposition with awakened interest, excitement, curiosity, and alarm. She ran along the passage to the office as soon as she was out of hearing of the other. In a moment more she would know. CHAPTER XIII. THE DECISIVE MOMENT. Mr. Bonamy felt weary of his morning’s expedition. It was not that there was really anything to tire him in it; but he was dejected, disappointed, mortified. He did not feel able to go into the office as usual, to meet Harry as usual, to do and say the usual things. He thought he would go into the house instead, and rest a little, and see Rita and the children, and try to console himself with the reflection that this painful discovery only made them all belong to himself the more. It was a poor consolation, and yet in a way it was sure. He felt them more his now that he was certain no other family could claim them. Poor girl! poor babies! some time they might be glad to take the name of Bonamy instead of that wretched one that was their own. He did not intend to say a word to Rita on the subject, but he did what it was the habit of this imprudent man to do, he thrust himself into temptation. He went, all emotional and disturbed as he was, into the dwelling-house, into the room where his daughter would most likely be found, and where she was certain to inquire into the cause of his depression. In half an hour, in the ordinary state of affairs, he would have been at Rita’s mercy, and notwithstanding all his fine resolutions would have betrayed everything to her. He went in, however, determined not to say a word, only to show his child who was injured, though she did not know it, that her father’s tenderness would never fail her. He was so foolish that he went into a jeweller’s on his way, and bought a little ornament for her. And he meant to say something very kind of Harry too, though it was by Harry that his humiliation had come. A peasant, a servant! and his poor