Each article as it was produced from the box was, after a cursory examination, handed over to Janet. She gazed at the portrait and the locket with no other sign of outward emotion than a closer knitting of her brows. The wedding-ring she kissed passionately. The certificate she read carefully twice over, and her face flushed as she read. Then she refolded it and put it calmly down in its place on the table. The love-letters were merely glanced at, and were then left for future consideration. The Confession itself Janet took into her hands for a moment. She recognised the writing at once. With a deep sigh she gave it back to the priest. "Read it aloud, dear Father Spiridion, if you please," she said. The old man rubbed his spectacles slowly and solemnly, as befitted the occasion, placed them carefully astride his nose, and after a preliminary cough, took up the paper and read what follows,-- "My darling Janet,--It is not intended that these lines shall meet your eye till the hand that writes them is mingled with the dust from which it came. I have been driven to write what is here set down by some inward influence--by some occult power working through me, and giving me no rest till I promised myself that it should be done. For myself, I have done with the world and its active duties long ago. I have no longer any interest in it except in so far as I may be permitted to watch over your fortunes, to love you with the secret love of a mother who dare not acknowledge her child, and to perform such small works of charity among the sick and poor as my humble means may allow of. But as regards you, the case is altogether different. You are on the verge of womanhood, and life, with all its struggles and temptations, is still before you. To lift up and clear away the mystery that has enveloped your childhood and youth, to inform you what your real position is in that great world into which you are about to enter, is therefore an act of the simplest justice, and one which ought no longer to be delayed. Unfortunately the revelation is one which I am forbidden to make while I am alive, but I am advised that in the form of a written confession it may be received by you after my death. These remarks will be better understood by you when you shall have read the whole of what I am now about to set down.