"I can never forget that day," and he smiled as he said it; "the day I found it impossible to divide the speck of opium; a breath would have blown it away, but I would have murdered the man who breathed upon it. I swallowed it; the touch of that atom is yet upon my tongue; I swallowed it and slept like a child; and then came the waking! For days I was a maniac--but it passed. "I grew into a new life--a beautiful, peaceful world. It had been around me all the time but I had forgotten how it looked; a blissful world! I was cured. "Years have passed since that day, and no taste of the hateful drug has ever been upon my tongue. Not for all the gold in the universe, not for any secrets of science, not for a look back into the face of my mother," he cried, hoarsely, rising to his feet; "not for a smile from heaven would I lay hands upon that fiend again!" He closed abruptly, his hand trembling, the perspiration beading his brow. His eyes fell and the woman Rita stood before them, a look of ineffable sadness and tenderness upon her face. "Will you retire now, Master Gerald?" she said, gently. Without a word he turned and left the room. She was about to follow when Edward, excited and touched by the scene he had witnessed and full of discoveries, stopped her with an imperious gesture. For a moment he paced the room. Rita was motionless, awaiting with evident nervousness his pleasure. He came and stood before her, and, looking her steadily in the face, said, abruptly: "Woman, what is the name of that young man, and what is mine?" She drew back quickly and her lips parted in a gasp. "My God!" he heard her whisper. "I demand an answer! You carry the secret of one of us--probably both. Which is the son of Marion Evans?" She sank upon her knees and hid her face in her apron. It was all true, then. Edward felt as though he himself would sink down beside her if the silence continued. "Say it," he said, hoarsely; "say it!" "As God is my judge," she answered, faintly, "I do not know." "One is?" "One is." "And the other--who is he?" "Mine." The answer was like a whisper from the pines wafted in through the open window. It was loud enough. Edward caught the chair for support. The world reeled about him. He suffocated. Rita still knelt with covered head, but her trembling form betrayed the presence of the long-restrained emotions. He walked unsteadily to the mantel, and, drawing the cover from the little picture, went to the mirror and placed it again by his face. At length he said in despair: "God pity me! God pity me!" The woman arose then and took the picture and gazed long and earnestly upon it. A sob burst from her lips. Lifting it again to the level of the man's face, she looked from one to the other. "Enough!" he said, reading it aright.