"Jeanie Duncan!" he exclaimed, half aloud; "what can she have to do with me?" The instant after he turned to Mrs. Vane, as those who are puzzled turn to those who are better informed. "Janet Macleod! did she marry a Macleod after all?" "She married your brother Alick, and the boy is their son. Now you know the worst--and _I_ have told you it--_I_, who would not hurt you for the world." "She married---- Then little Paul?" He stood as if unable to grasp the meaning of his own words. "Sit down, dear, and read it, since you have chosen to read. There is no hurry. You know the worst," she said gently. So with a sort of dazed incredulity he read on in silence: "Paul Macleod! yes! Paul! you shall read this some day; some day soon. I am revenged. You were ashamed of me, and now I am the laird of Gleneira's wife. Yet I did not mean to be revenged till he came, like a fool, and put it into my head. I was getting tired of the life, too--of the hard, thankless life. It was by chance I fell in with him in Paris. I went there with someone and stayed on; so he could not guess that I was Jeanie Duncan, whom he had never seen. And I hated him because he was your brother; so he grew mad after me, and promised marriage. Then the thought came--I, whom the laird's Jock did not think good enough to love or marry, will take the laird himself, and flaunt it over them all. So we were married, and then, before I had time to settle anything, he died--died of drink, Paul! "Well! I hated him, so I did not care. I hated him for being so like you, and caring for me when you did not---- "And now, if it is a boy, I will have my revenge--my just revenge--and turn you out of the old place. But I wait, because, if it is a girl, you will not care, and I will not have you jeer because my revenge has failed. I pray day and night that it may be a boy, and lest I should die, I write all about it, and put my marriage lines with the letter. Then my son can come, and turn you out. I did not seek revenge, remember. It came into my hand, and it is just. You know that it is just! "Jeanie Duncan. "P.S.--Look in the photograph shops in Paris for 'La Belle Écossaise,' if you wish to know what I was like when _he_ married me." Paul, reading methodically, paused for a second, passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear his mind, and then went on to a fainter pencil scrawl: "Well! I have waited, Paul! It is a boy--so like you, Paul! I lie and think--for they say I am dying, and so it cannot hurt now--that he _is_ your son, and that we were married in the old days. But it is all a lie! He is _his_ son, and I will have my revenge! If only I could remember anything but the old days, Paul! Ah! surely when people love as we did---- No! I do not understand. Only, the boy is so like you. I lie and think, and I feel he must never turn you out. Never! never! Only, if you die, then the boy must have his rights, for he is your son.