"I knew it! How I hate her!" exclaimed Mrs. Stuart, vindictively. "Would to God she had perished in the sea that day! From the very first I hated her even before I dreamed of her identity!" And for a few moments the air was filled with the sharp ravings of her anger and bitter hatred. "How have you learned so much?" inquired Julius Revington, curiously, for he had fancied that the mystery surrounding Irene was impenetrable to all but himself. "No matter. I am not blind to anything around me. I carry too terrible a secret in my breast to run the risk of its detection. I must guard it at every point," she replied. "Can you guess what question I am about to ask you, Julius Revington? You cannot? It is this, then, and mind that you answer me truly. Do you intend to turn traitor?" CHAPTER XXXVI. "Traitor? What do you mean?" stammered Julius Revington. "You know well enough what I mean," flashed Mrs. Stuart angrily. "You are going to marry that girl, and of course her welfare will be yours. It will be to your interest to betray me. Do you intend to reveal the secret and drive me and Lilia out into the world nameless and disgraced---- through no fault of mine, remember, but through the sin of that old dotard who should have carried his miserable secret to the grave with him?" A pause. It seemed to Guy Kenmore that they must hear his heart beating so near them in the stillness. He was thoroughly aroused now, but he could not believe that it was wrong to listen. On the contrary he blessed the fancy that had led him out into the cool night air. Julius Revington made no reply to Mrs. Stuart's half-piteous appeal. "Cannot you speak?" she cried out, sharply. "Are you too cowardly to own your vile intentions?" "You use strong terms, Mrs. Stuart," he said, sullenly. "Is it a vile act to carry out the sacred commands of a dying man? To restore to Clarence Stuart the last love of his youth? To give honor and happiness to a wronged woman? To restore her unhappy child to her father's name and love?" "Then you do intend to do so! Wretch!" cried the lady, bitterly; then she broke down, sobbing in an abandonment of despair: "Oh, Lilia, Lilia, my poor, fragile darling! This will kill you!" Julius Revington sat sullenly silent, ashamed of being found out in his designs, yet by no means ready to forego them. "And you promised to keep the secret for me. You took my bribes, and swore you would never tell the truth to Clarence! You are a perjured villain!" upbraided the lady, violently. "And you are a----". He bent and whispered the last word in her ear in a tone of threatening. "Beware how you call names, my lady! I am not to be abused and bullied, remember that!" A wail of pain broke from her lips.