“The cur who ill-used and neglected his wife—whose conduct drove her from her wretched home, and justified her abandonment of him—was never man enough to conceive such a revenge, or to hate with such a hatred. However, in this case we need not enter upon the question of motive. There is one reason why Tom Darcy cannot be suspected of any part in Sir Godfrey’s murder. He died nine years ago, and was buried at my expense in Norwood Cemetery.” “Great God! then who could have fired that pistol?” “The answer to that question is most likely here,” replied Lord Cheriton quietly, as he tore open the envelope of Mrs. Porter’s letter. The letter was brief but comprehensive, and all-sufficing. “You know now who killed your cherished daughter’s husband. If she is like me she will carry her sorrow to the grave. If she is like me all her days will be darkened by cruel memories. Your broken promise blighted my life. I have blighted her life—an eye for an eye. I told you three and twenty years ago that a day would come when you would be sorry for having abandoned me. I think that day _has_ come. “EVELYN DARCY.” Lord Cheriton handed the letter to his kinsman without a word. “Since you know so much of my history you may as well know all,” he said; “so know the thorny pillow which a man makes for himself when he sacrifices the best years of his life to an illicit love.” Theodore read those ghastly lines in silence. The signature told all. “What in Heaven’s name brought Evelyn Strangway to be a lodge-keeper at the entrance of the house where she was born?” he asked, at last. “How could you permit such a life-long humiliation?” “It was her own desire—it was at her insistence I allowed her to come here. I opposed her fancy with all my power of argument, with all the strength of opposition. I offered to provide her with a home in town or country—at home or abroad—near at hand or at the Antipodes. I offered to settle four hundred a year upon her—to sink capital to that amount—to make her future and that of—our child—secure against the chances of fate.” “Your child—Mercy!” exclaimed Theodore. “Yes, Mercy. My daughter and hers. You understand now why she refused my help. She would take nothing from her father. There was a like perversity in mother and daughter, a determination to make me drink the cup of remorse to the dregs. Oh, Theodore, it is a long and shameful story. To you—for the first time in my life—to you only among mankind these lips have spoken of it. I have kept my secret. I have brooded upon it in the slow hours of many and many a wakeful night. I have never forgotten—I have not been allowed to forget. If time could have erased or softened that bitter memory under other conditions I know not; but for me the case was hopeless. My victim was there, at my gates, a perpetual memento of my folly and my wrong-doing.” “Strange that a woman of refinement and education should elect to fill so degrading a position!”