It seemed to him that she was blind and mad as he had called her, but there was no retreat from betraying all that he knew. It was cruel, but perhaps it would deter her from her insane purpose of vindicating her mother’s name. It would rankle like a thorn in her heart, but perhaps it would teach her the worldly wisdom of saving the Vale name from further obloquy. With a heart-wrung sigh of the most honest sympathy, he bent forward and whispered low and rapidly in her ear for several minutes. She sat and listened, her slight form rigid, her face pallid, her somber eyes gleaming strangely, and heard the saddest story ever breathed in a young girl’s ears against an idolized mother. And yet one with which the world is too sadly familiar! It was that old story of a girl’s ambition, and then a woman’s frailty and sin. And this was what he said: “Although Ronald Vale was a prince among men, and worthy of all honor and love, your mother gave him the hand without the heart. She was young and beautiful, the last descendant of a famous old Puritan family, but, alas! poor in everything but her own charms, and for ambition’s sake she married Ronald Vale. “She became a social queen in New England society, and her husband worshiped her and believed in her love and purity as he believed in the angels. When your baby eyes first opened to the light your advent was hailed like that of a little princess. The father and mother both idolized you. A few years passed with seemingly fair skies, then the bolt of lightning fell--your father was found dead in his library, and the servants proved that your mother had been seen to leave the room stealthily just five minutes before he was found by the butler, murdered.” “Yes, yes, I know all that,” Italy breathed eagerly. “My mother told me, and then I read it in the papers she had kept for me. Papa was sitting up late that night to look over some papers his lawyer had sent him that day. Mama had been compelled to attend a reception without him. She remained but a short time, and went, on returning, to the library to bid papa good night before retiring. He told her not to sit up for him, as he would be detained an hour yet, and had ordered the butler to bring him some warm coffee presently. As she kissed him an affectionate good night she noticed his diary lying close to his elbow on the desk, as though he had been writing in it. Then she went out softly and came to the nursery to me, where, five minutes later, she was startled by the outcries of the butler, who, on taking in the coffee to his master, had found him lying dead, stabbed to the heart.” “Those are the precise acts that were submitted to the jury,” Mr. Gardner answered. “But though circumstantial evidence pointed to your mother as the guilty party, still the absence of a motive so influenced the jury that they leaned strongly to a theory of suicide, and acquitted Mrs. Vale on that doubt.”