“Now,” I said, “you are wretched and alone, and what you have refused to give to me I will give to you--love, and pity, and forgiveness most of all. You cannot claim them of me now, and now I will give them to you freely. Because you are in need, I will come to you; because in name you have had that right to my reverence and protection, I will honour that ghostly trust. I cannot put you from my heart so easily. Your shame is still my shame; your cause my cause. Be comforted. If, being bred to tenderness and recognition, I had not learned to watch, to spy, you would be without an arm well nerved to help you now. All things, I suppose, work to their appointed end. This man, at least--I say it--shall not have his damned way with you. Confide in me for once. Has he attempted to bleed you a second time?” She made a very slight negative motion with her head. “He will do it,” I said; “he will come again and again. Do you recognise that?” “Yes.” “How will you answer him?” She did not speak, but I felt a little tremor run through the hands I held. “Why,” I said, “do you not make a clean breast of it to your husband? If I know him, he would not judge that imposition hardly.” “No,” she whispered. “It is not him I fear.” “Who, then? Not me? Let him know me for what I am, for all I care.” “Richard!” “Why, I believe he’d think the better of us both for it.” “Be as cruel to me as you will.” “Insult you, you mean. But I know what is in your heart. Confess to him? How would that avert the greater catastrophe?--the scarlet letter--the ignominy of the moral exposure? And your persecutor knows it, no doubt, and builds his plans upon the ruin of your reputation, not as a wife, but saint.” “O, my God!” I must pause a little in the mad tumult of my emotions. To have her thus at my feet, broken, despairing, looking to me, the neglected and despised, for help and reassurance!--the madness beat like fire in my brain. “Now listen,” I said at last. “This man--this reptile--he mines and mines, like the blind beast he is. He never thinks of his being undermined by another--his black burrow seems secure to him----” I felt her hands plucking at mine; but I held them tight. “He sets his snare, and never sees the noose awaiting his own neck. O! if I have spied--do you hear me?--I have spied to more effect than _you_ might dare to hope, or _he_, perhaps, to fear. Mother!--there, I will speak it for the first and last time--I have that in my hand to save you, and send him to the gallows.” She tore her hands away at last, and rose, tottering, to her feet. “Not that!” she cried insanely--“not that! You must not. It cannot be. Do you not know? Have you never guessed? Must I be the one to tell you?” “What?” “He is your father, Richard.” With the word, there came a swift step at the door, and Miss Christmas hurried into the room, pale and disturbed. Her eyes met mine in one startled glance, and turned to Lady Skene.