“Leave me now, please; there is nothing more to tell, and I am so tired and sick, and—and—there is Margery yet to see. Oh, Miss Hetherton, make it easy as you can to Margery. Don’t let her think ill of me. I could not bear that. I would rather have the bad opinion of the whole world than hers. She is so good, so true, and hates deception so much. Go now, and leave me to myself. I believe—I think—yes, I am sure I am going mad.” Reinette looked at her in surprise. “There is something else,” she thought, “something behind, which she has not told, and I mean to know what it is; but I will leave her now,” and taking Christine’s hot hands in hers she said, very kindly, “Good-by, Christine; I am going, but another time you will tell me more of my mother.” Then pressing her hand to her lips she ran down the stairs to Margery, who was waiting anxiously for her, and who for the first time in her life was glad when Reinette said good-by and left her alone to seek her mother. CHAPTER XXXV. MARGERY AND HER MOTHER. For a full quarter of an hour after Reinette’s departure Margery sat motionless, with her head bent down, thinking of all the incidents of her past life as connected with her mother, and recalling here and there certain acts which, viewed in the new light shed upon them, seemed both plain and mysterious. Buzzing through Margery’s brain, and almost driving her mad, was the same suspicion which had at times so disturbed Reinette, but, like Reinette, she fought it down. But not for the dead man whose costly monument was gleaming cold and white in the grave-yard of Merrivale. He was nothing to her, save as the father of her friend, who, for his daughter’s sake, had been kind to her so far as money was concerned. But it was for the woman up stairs, her mother, that her heart was aching so, and the hot blood pouring so swiftly through her veins. To lose faith in her whom she had believed so good, and who had taught her always that truth and purity were more to be prized than all the wealth in the world, would be terrible. And yet that mother’s life had for years been one of concealment, for which she could see no excuse. That given to Queenie was not the true reason. There was something else, “and I must know what it is,” she thought, “even if it kills me.” Starting to her feet at last, and forgetting how weak and sick her mother was, she went half way up the stairs and called: “Mother, will you come down, or shall I come up?” The voice was not the same which Mrs. La Rue knew as Margery’s. There was a hardness and sternness in it which boded no good to her, and a mortal terror took possession of her as she thought: “My hour has come. She will wring it from me. Well, no matter. It will be better for her, perhaps.” “Say, mother, will you come down, or shall I come up?” came again from Margery, and this time Mrs. La Rue replied: