"Dead!" repeated Gideon, not in the tone of a man who had lost a friend, but in that of one who had lost an enemy. "Yes," said Stephen, wiping his dry eyes with his spotless handkerchief; "my poor uncle died three days ago. I am afraid I have not broken it as softly as I should have done. You knew him well?" "Yes, I knew him well." "Then you know how great a loss the county has suffered in----" "Spare your fine phrases. Come to your business with me. What brings you here?" "I am here in consequence of a communication made to me by my uncle on his death-bed. Are you alone?" Gideon waved his hand with passionate impatience. "That communication," Stephen continued, "concerns a certain young lady----" "He told you?" he exclaimed. "My uncle told me that I should find a young lady, in whose future he was greatly interested, in the charge of a certain person named Gideon Rolfe." "Well, did he tell you any more than that?" Stephen made a gesture in the negative. "So," said Gideon Rolfe, "he left it to me to tell the story of his crime. You are Ralph Davenant's nephew. You are the nephew of a villain and a scoundrel!" It was true, then, that the man knew nothing of the secret marriage of Ralph Davenant and Caroline Hatfield. "A scoundrel and a villain!" repeated Gideon, leaning forward and clutching the table. "You say that he told you the story of his crime, glossed over and falsified. Hear it from me. Your uncle and I were schoolfellows and friends. I was the son of the schoolmaster at Hurst. Your uncle left school to go to college. I remained at Hurst in my father's house. I could have gone to college also, but I would not leave Hurst, for I was in love. I loved Caroline Hatfield. She was the daughter of the gamekeeper on the Hurst estate, and we were to be married. Two months before the day fixed for our marriage your uncle, my friend--my friend!--came home to spend the vacation. We were friends still, and I--cursed fool that I was--took him to the gamekeeper's lodge to introduce him to my sweetheart. Six weeks afterward he and she had fled." Stephen watched him closely, his heart beating wildly. "They had fled," continued Gideon, in a broken voice. "My life was ended on the day they brought me the news. I left Hurst Leigh and came here. A year later she came back to me--came back to me to die. She died and left me----. She left me her child. I--I loved her still and swore to protect that child, and I have done so. There is my story. What have you to say?" "It is terrible, terrible!" he exclaimed. "I have kept my vow. Her child has grown up ignorant of the shame which is her heritage. Here, buried in the heart of the forest, away from the world, I have kept and guarded her for her mother's sake. There is the story, told without gloss or falsehood. What have you to say?" "You have discharged your self-appointed trust most nobly! But--but that trust has come to an end." "Who says so?"