It was a most noble rôle the man was playing in concealing Cora’s sins and taking them all on his own broad shoulders. He had bought Carey Doyle’s silence, and was prepared to keep Cora’s secret forever from the world in atonement for the one great wrong he had done her--the wrong to which she had tempted him by her heartless coquetry. Forgiving all her sins by the strength of his love he hoped to win her yet from Laurier, and awaited her answer with burning impatience. But she clung all the closer to Frank, though she could read by his face that he thought she ought to turn to Noel. She was opening her lips to cry out passionately that she loved only Laurier and would sue for a divorce, when Mark and Willie Lyndon rushed upon the scene, panting and excited, crying breathlessly: “Oh, Uncle Leon, Aunt Verna, come with us! We have found our dear Cousin Jessie at last, but she is dead!” Like a flash in the confusion of that startling announcement, Cora dropped Frank’s arm and flew to Noel’s side: Her face was ghastly as she breathed in his ear: “Come, Ernest, the machine is waiting! Let us fly! Fly to the other end of the world!” Half dazed with the suddenness of the turn things were taking, he followed her lead, and while the others rushed upstairs, he and Cora sprang into the limousine and were driven to the railway station. The secret of the locked room was no longer a secret. A score of people followed the eager footsteps of the little lads upstairs to the sad sight they had encountered on opening the door. There lay sweet Jessie, wan, pale, terribly emaciated, and still as death on the low couch--a sight that brought cries of grief and horror from women’s lips, and tears to the eyes of men. Fortunately the old family physician was in the company. It looked like death, but he would not pronounce it so. He remembered what a terrible mistake he had made over Jessie before. He knelt by her side, doing all he could to restore life, and all the while he was inwardly praying: “God help me! Give back her beautiful life to us!” And all the time the anguished mother and father, the distracted lover, the interested friends, were echoing the prayer in their hearts. Oh, what joy thrilled their hearts when the doctor found a faint little sign of life, but what long and skillful nursing it took before Jessie was well again, or even strong enough to tell the story of Cora’s satanic cruelty! But they were happy days when she was convalescing with so many dear ones by her side--her reunited parents, her precious little cousins, and last but not least, her devoted lover, Frank Laurier. They did not hide their love from each other now, they could talk of the past without embarrassment, and once when Darling Jessie, as they called her now, scolded him for that first stolen kiss, he retorted by telling her of that second kiss upon the sea that had seemingly brought her back to life.