That lovely woman—proud, beautiful, cultivated—with that magnificent form and carriage, the “low-born girl!” whom she supposed her brother had married! It seemed impossible! She was so entirely different from what she had conceived her to be. Why, this brilliant creature was fitted to grace a throne—to shine a star in the highest circles of even her own country, of which she was so arrogantly proud, and she, by her cunning plotting, her falsehood and calumny, had debarred her from her home, from all the rights which legally belonged to her; she had brought shame and dishonor upon her, broken her heart, and, in so doing, had made her own brother’s home desolate, his life almost a barren waste. That beautiful child, too—that dainty, graceful, golden-haired fairy, with her mother’s delicate features and her father’s eyes; yes, they were strikingly like Sir William’s own—she had tried to cheat her out of her heritage, and thus the grand old house at Heathdale was childless and was likely to remain so until this brave, determined woman came to demand justice, and to claim for her daughter the respect and honor that had been denied her as a wife. She knew that she would do it if she lived; those quiet, resolute tones still rang in her ears, and she fell back upon her pillows weak and faint, heart-sick and terrified, and, for the moment, filled with remorse for the sin of the past. She fully realized at last the enormity of her treachery and wickedness—the hardness of her heart, the selfishness of her nature. She had been utterly heartless when she had attempted to crush the lovely girl whom her brother had won, and now the basely wronged woman had turned and heaped coals of fire upon her head. She had nobly put aside all sense of injury, and, knowing full well that she was serving an enemy, had saved her life and then given her kindest attention and tenderest care during her illness. Lady Linton knew that she should carry a burdened heart to her grave on account of it. Fired with sudden impulse, she started up and sharply rang her bell. The woman of the house came to her almost immediately. “Where is she?” demanded the invalid, wildly. “Who?” asked her attendant, surprised by her excessive agitation. “The lady who has been so kind to me. Call her back! Call her at once!” “She has gone. The carriage has just driven away from the cottage where she stopped.” Lady Linton sank back again with a groan. She was too late. She had meant to do a good deed. Under the impulse of the moment, and with a feeling of gratitude animating her, overcome with admiration for a rarely beautiful woman, and a sense of superiority; with the vision of that lovely, dark-eyed child still before her, she had resolved to make a full confession of all her wrong-doing, try to effect a reconciliation between those two who, she knew, still devotedly loved each other, and thus atone, as far as was possible, for the sin she had committed.