"Perhaps Vince was to blame; but he did not realize it then, poor fellow! You see, Kathleen, he worshipped his lovely little bride, and it grieved him that she was lacking in certain accomplishments familiar to most young girls in his cultured set. To remedy this, he employed teachers and Zaidee learned rapidly until----" he passed the back of his hand across his eyes and groaned. "Until----" repeated Kathleen. "Quite unexpected by him--for she was probably too proud to betray herself to him--Zaidee became quite jealous of that pretty young widow, Mrs. Belmont, and in a fit of madness took her own life, and nearly broke her husband's heart." "He married the young widow in a little more than a year," the girl replied, unable to resist this bitter fling at her dead father's memory. He winced, the poor old man, as she spoke thus of her father, and answered, almost excusingly: "He was so wretched, and Mrs. Belmont comforted him. She, too, had loved Zaidee, and shared his grief with him. That was how she made herself so necessary to the unhappy man." "The fiend!" broke hissingly from Kathleen's white lips. He turned to her in amazement. "What do you mean?" he asked, hoarsely. It was well that they were alone in the car, for Kathleen's excitement was terrible. Her eyes blazed, her cheeks paled, her heart beat violently against her side. "Uncle Ben, I am speaking of that woman who so unworthily took my dead mother's place!" she exclaimed. "Yes, she is a fiend! _She_ to pretend that she loved the memory of the woman she goaded to madness--perhaps murdered; for no one saw my poor young mother drive the fatal steel into her heart. Oh, God! what deceit--what treachery!" He grasped her wrist with steely fingers, his eyes flashed with a fire akin to hers, and he whispered; "Hush! You must not dare accuse _her_ so! You drive me mad! Oh, it can not be!" "You take that false woman's part, then, Uncle Ben, against me and my poor young mother? Listen, then; let me tell you all I know--a secret I kept from my dead father, because I believed in him, trusted him, in spite of the servants' gossip that accused him of complicity in his young wife's death." "They dared, the hounds! accuse m-my brother thus?" he breathed, fiercely, the perspiration starting out on his brow, his strong frame trembling. "Yes, they accused him," answered the girl. "Do not take it so hard, Uncle Ben. He was innocent, I know; but that fiendish woman played her part to perfection. She made my mother believe that Vincent Carew wished her out of the way, so that he might wed _her_, the traitress! She made the servants believe the same. She even plotted----" But suddenly the girl paused with clasped hands. "Oh! uncle, dear, it will wound you if I mention this; it will blacken my father's memory in your eyes--and I always loved him--I love him still, in spite of what he has done to me, and I ought to spare him."