Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather the house of Lady Lansmere, by whom she had been educated and brought up, in order to accept the place of governess or companion in London. One evening she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and at the first sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She was carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of the town) was sent for. That night Leonard came into the world, and his mother died. She never recovered her senses, never spoke intelligibly from the time she entered the house. "And never therefore named your father," said Dr. Morgan. "We know not who he was." "And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander this dead mother? How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of wedlock?" "There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger--never any rumor of her marriage--her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house--her emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a parent's home: these are all the evidence against her. But Mr. Avenel deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to think we judged too harshly--perhaps we did." "And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard mournfully, and after long silence--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the motherless child?" "Inquiries!--Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your grandmother's nature is very rigid. Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader himself," said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the thought of dishonor. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and memory from suspicion. There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day on a visit. "Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant, two or three months old; she took charge of you; Nora was buried, and the secret kept. None out of the family knew of it, but myself and the curate of the town--Mr. Dale. The day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a village at some distance. There her child died; and when she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was a father to you, for he had loved Nora; they had been children together." "And she came to London--London is strong and cruel," muttered Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I see all--I desire to know no more. This father, he must indeed have been like those whom I have read of in books. To love, to wrong her--_that_ I can conceive; but then to leave, to abandon; no visit to her grave--no remorse--no search for his own child. Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right. Let us think of _him_ no more." The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir, the ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go."