I glanced at the organ as he spoke, I wondered how she behind it could sit there so calm and unmoved if the last of her strength was not yet gone; and then again Sir Philip Yorke was speaking: "Yet, Mr. Wolfe Considine, your confirmation is somewhat strange. You were, if I mistake not, proscribed as a rebel in the reign of Her late Majesty, Queen Anne. I have a full description of you here, handed to me by the Marquis. I will read it:--Wolfe Considine, late an officer in the First Royal Scots Regiment, from which he deserted before Oudenarde. Irishman, a spy in Scotland and traitor. Proscribed in seventeen hundred and ten and fled to Hamburg. Now, sir, since you were absent from England from that year until after the accession of the late King in seventeen hundred and fourteen, will you tell us how you could possibly be what you state you are, the father of Lord St. Amande!" "I--I--I was frequently back in England--in Ireland--at that time," he stammered, "disguised and unknown to the Government. 'Twas there, then, that I met Louise St. Amande." A terrible cry rang down the room as he spoke; a cry betwixt a scream and a gasp, one that caused all our eyes to be turned to the spot whence it came. And there we saw that which was enough to appal us; which caused Gerald to spring to his feet and rush forward and made me tremble and desire to weep. For, erect and strong, as though she had never known an illness; her eyes fixed with an awful glare upon the unhappy wretch; her hands twitching and closing and opening spasmodically, we saw advancing down the room towards us the woman so foully calumniated. Back from her she motioned her son, as though commanding him not to bar her passage; slowly but unhaltingly she came on until, at last, she stood full face in front of the coward-hearted scoundrel before her. "Liar," she hissed forth, "liar! Deny it! Deny it! Retract! Retract!" He stood shivering before her, his ashen lips muttering and trembling, though no sound came from them; he seemed, indeed, as though stricken dumb. "Liar," again she said, still with the dreadful stare in her eyes as though she gazed on some horror unspeakable, "liar! Retract! You sat once at his board and ate of his dish; when you were beggared he gave you money and clothed you; yet now you would steal his wife's honour from him; the honour from his child. Retract! Retract, ere it is too late!" He was dumb. Dumb with fear and dismay! He could frame no words in answer to the spectre that had arisen before him; he could not meet the glance of the poor paralysed woman whose strength had come back to her so that she might confront him. Still she went on: