“Sit down, my children, and listen to me. I believe the time has come when I should open my heart to you, my Virgie, and since Rupert is now one of us it will be just as well for him to hear the story that I have to tell you at the same time; it will save a repetition, and I am not strong enough to review the past many times. Perhaps, too,” she added, turning to the young man, who, in obedience to her request, had drawn his betrothed back to her seat upon the sofa, “you may be able to give me some advice regarding a duty which I have soon to perform.” She sat down near the lovers as she ceased speaking, but looking more like a statue of wax than a living being, for it seemed almost like going to her own execution to confess the wrongs which had been the death-blow to all the hopes of her own youth. CHAPTER XV. “I HAVE MET LADY LINTON BEFORE.” “You have always supposed, Virgie,” Mrs. Alexander continued, after pausing a moment to summon all her fortitude for the duty which lay before her, “that your father was dead.” “And is he not, mamma?” cried the startled girl, growing almost as pale as her mother, and casting a terrified look upon her lover. “No, dear; he is still living and here in England.” “Mamma!” and the cry of dismay, almost of agony, smote heavily on the fond mother’s heart, while Rupert Hamilton gazed from one to the other, a look of wonder on his fine face. “Be quiet, Virgie,” returned Mrs. Alexander, gently. “No stigma rests upon either your name or mine, as I perceive you apprehend. Although I was most cruelly deserted in less than a year after my marriage, and at a time when I needed tenderest care and sympathy; although I was scorned and repudiated by the family of the man whom I had wedded; although I was left weak, unprotected, and comparatively destitute in a strange city—yet I have risen above it all; I have been able to prove that I was a lawful wife; that my child could claim an honored name, and it is for that purpose that I am here in London to-day. But let me begin at the beginning, and tell you all about it.”