Gerald, who in his narrative of events, had purposely omitted all mention of Desborough, now detailed the occurrence at the hut, and concluded what the reader already knows, by stating that he had observed and severed from the settler, as he slept heavily on the floor, the portrait in question, which, added to the previous declaration of Matilda as to the obscurity of her birth, connected with other circumstances on board his gun-boat, on his trip to Buffalo, had left an impression little short of certainty that he was indeed the father of the woman whom he so wildly loved. For some minutes after this explanation there was a painful silence, which neither seemed anxious to interrupt. At length Gerald asked: "But what had a circumstance, so capable of explanation, to do with the breaking off of your engagement, Matilda? or did he, more proud--perhaps I should say less debased--than myself, shrink from uniting his fate with the daughter of a murderer?" "True," said Matilda, musingly; "you have said, I think, that he slew your father. This thirst for revenge, then, would seem hereditary. _That_ is the only, because it is the noblest, inheritance I would owe to such a being." "But your affair with your lover, Matilda--how terminated that?" demanded Gerald, with increasing paleness and in a faltering tone. "In his falsehood and my disgrace. Early the next morning I sent to him, and bade him seek me in the temple at the usual hour. He came, but it was only to blast my hopes--to disappoint the passion of the woman who doated upon him. He accused me of vile intercourse with a slave, and almost maddened me with ignoble reproaches. It was in vain that I swore to him most solemnly, the man he had seen was my father--a being whom motives of prudence compelled me to receive in private, even though my heart abhorred and loathed the relationship between us. He treated my explanation with deriding contempt, bidding me either produce that father within twenty-four hours, or find some easier fool to persuade, that one wearing the hue and features of the black, could by human possibility be the parent of a white woman. Again I explained the seeming incongruity, by urging that the hasty and imperfect view he had taken was of a mask, imitating the features of a negro, which my father had brought with him as a disguise, and which he had hastily resumed on hearing the noise of the key in the door. I even admitted as an excuse for seeing him thus clandestinely, the lowly origin of my father and the base occupation he followed of a treacherous spy, who, residing in the Canadas, came, for the mere consideration of gold, to sell political information to the enemies of the country that gave him asylum and protection. I added that his visit to me was to extort money, under a threat of publishing our consanguinity, and that dread of his (my lover's) partiality being decreased by the disclosure, had induced me to