As she did so she heard a sound. She rose hastily and turned toward the folding-doors leading into the adjoining room. They had been partially closed, and as she turned they were pushed aside and some one came through them. It was Jem Haworth. He was haggard and disheveled, and as he approached her he walked unsteadily. "I was in there through it all," he said, "and I heard every word." She was herself again, at once. She knew she had not been herself ten minutes before. "Well," she said. He came up and stood near her--and almost abject tremor upon him. "Will you listen to what I have got to say?" he said. She made a cold gesture of assent. "If she'd gone to some and heard what they had to tell," he said, "it would have killed her. It's well she came here." She saw the dark color rush to his face and knew what was coming. "It's all true, by----" he burst out, "every word of it!" "When I was in there," he went on, with a gesture toward the other room, "I swore I'd tell you. Make the best and the worst of it. It's all true--that and more." He sat down in a chair and rested his forehead on his hands. "Things has begun to go agen me," he said. "They never did before. I've been used to tell myself there was a kind of luck in keeping it hid from her. Th' day it comes on her, full force, I'm done for. I said in there you should know, at least. It's all true." "I knew it was true," remarked Miss Ffrench, "all the time." "_You_ knew!" he cried out. "_You!_" "I have known it from the first," she answered. "Did you think it was a secret?" He turned hot and cold as he looked at her. "Then, by George, you'd a reason for saying what you did. What was it?" She remained silent, looking out of the open window across the flower-bright garden. She watched a couple of yellow butterflies eddying above a purple hyacinth for several seconds before she spoke, and then did so slowly and absently. "I don't know the reason," she said. "It was a strange thing for _me_ to do." "It wasn't to save _me_ aught," he returned. "That's plain enough." "No," she answered, "it was not to save you. I am not given to pitying people, but I think that for the time I wanted to save _her_. It was a strange thing," she said, softly, "for _me_ to do." CHAPTER XXXII. CHRISTIAN MURDOCH. Christian had never spoken to Murdoch openly of his secret labor. He was always aware that she knew and understood; he had seen her knowledge in her face almost from the first, but they had exchanged no words on the subject. He had never wavered from his resolve since he had made it. Whatever his tasks had been in the day, or however late his return was at night, he did not rest until he had given a certain number of hours to this work. Often Christian and his mother, wakening long after midnight, heard him moving about in his closed room. He grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, but he did not speak of what he was doing, and they never knew whether he was hopeful or despairing.