"Nor any relation at all. Oh, dear! I am very, very sorry for that. I always loved Felix--although, all the same, I used to stand a little bit in awe of him. And now, I suppose I've no right to love him any more. But perhaps you don't intend to tell him even a part of that which you have just told me. In that case, matters would go on as they have always done, and he would continue to think of me and to treat me as his sister." "And, knowing what you know now, would you be content to go on living on money to which you have no right?" Anna looked dumfounded. "I had not thought of that," she said. "No, I suppose I should not be content--indeed, I am quite sure I should not be. But what is to be done?" "There is only one way out of the difficulty, and that is, for Anna Drelincourt to die." "Good gracious, Tetta--I mean, mother dearest--you frighten me!" "I have thought it all out. Listen! In the course of a few days you shall write to Mr. Drelincourt, informing him that you purpose taking a voyage to Madeira for the good of your health, which has been anything but satisfactory of late. We will go and stay there a month; but while on the return voyage Anna Drelincourt shall die, and shall be buried at sea, and on landing it will be my painful duty to inform Mr. Drelincourt of her demise. I think you said that his last letter to you was dated from Bordighera." Her voice and manner were as dry and matter of fact as if she were explaining some detail of housekeeping, but when she had come to an end Anna sat and stared at her like one doubtful whether she had heard aright. "Why do you look at me so strangely?" asked her mother, after a minute's silence. "There is no other way open to us that I can see. Can you discern any other?" Anna shook her head. "No," she said faintly, "I cannot." "You do not know, you cannot comprehend," resumed Mrs. Jenwyn--and now there was a ring of genuine emotion in her voice--"what I have gone through in the course of the last few days, since I knew that this money was coming to me. On the one hand was my promise to Mrs. Drelincourt not to reveal the secret of your birth, except under very exceptional circumstances; on the other was a mother's heart hungering and crying out for her child. There is no one left alive to whom the death of Anna Drelincourt will be a matter of much moment. Mr. Felix Drelincourt will grieve about her for a little while, but her fortune will make a handsome addition to his income, and he may perhaps derive some consolation from that. "And so--and so at length I came to the determination to tell you everything. I wanted to claim you as my own--my very own. I wanted to break down the invisible barrier which has kept us apart for too many years. Oh, my darling, do not tell me that I have done wrong!"