"You are a good fellow. How I have misunderstood you! Well, I will repay you by giving up Ruth to you; I shall never marry her, nor, indeed, anyone. Heaven help me!" "Why not?" Geoffrey, asked. "You have seen what I am. What sort of husband or father should I make? But this is beside the point. Hear what I have to tell, and advise me what to do. In the first place, do you know the Turnpike House?" "Great Heavens! Are you talking about that murder?" "Yes, I daresay you remember it." "Remember it! I should think so. Why, nothing was talked about at Westham for months but that crime. A man was found in the house stabbed to the heart; his wife was accused of the murder; she was taken, with her child, while trying to escape." "Yes," was the calm reply. "My father was the murdered man, my mother was the woman accused of the crime, and I the child." "Then your name is Jenner?" "Yes a name to be proud of, is it not? But I have not the courage to take it. Ugh!" He shuddered. "Think, if all that were known! How could I appear in public? People would come, not to hear me play, but to see a man who had been connected with a mysterious crime--whose mother was suffering punishment for that crime! I should kill myself if it were known." "There will be no need to kill yourself. You are absolutely safe with me." "But if Ruth should ask you?" "Ruth shall never hear it from me. When I said just now that she might cajole we, I was thinking of trivial things; but this terrible story shall remain a secret for ever. You can speak to me as you would to a confessor. There are some things, Webster, which a man does not do; and this is one of them. I am glad you have told me." "I am glad you know," sighed Neil. "It will ease my mind to tell you all. Now listen," and he recounted all the circumstances--his dream, and the causes which had led up to his identification as the son of the accused woman. Geoffrey was more startled than ever, especially when Mr. Cass's name was mentioned. "And does he know all this?" he asked. Then, in reply to Neil's nod, he added: "No wonder he would not let you marry his daughter!" "No wonder," said the young man, bitterly. "Touch pitch and defile yourself; but it was not he who stopped the marriage--it was myself. I would rather die than marry. See what I am--a mass of nerves; think of the terrible history of my parents. Then imagine me asking any woman to share my misery! Well, now that you know all, what do you say?" Heron looked rather helplessly at him. "What can I say?" he remarked, hesitatingly. "It seems that your mother murdered your father under great provocation, and is now in prison. Well, I think it would be best for you to put the matter out of your head, and go abroad. It is not the slightest use you seeing her." "I have already done so," Neil said, quietly. Geoffrey started from his seat. "You visited her in prison?" he asked