She had always hated the lovely, innocent girl, and now she thought triumphantly that Kathleen's day was past. Her father was dead, and she was disinherited. She had no part nor lot in the home to which she had returned. The cruel woman looked at the lovely young suppliant, and sneered: "You can not impose on me with your false claims. You are not Kathleen Carew, and your resemblance to her is very slight--not strong enough to bear out your assertion. My step-daughter is dead." "No, no!" Kathleen cried, piteously. "I am your step-daughter, indeed I am, mamma, and I have told you the truth. I have been so ill and unhappy all these months, it is that which has changed my looks and made me look so unlike the Kathleen you remember. Where is papa? He will know me, he will be glad that I am alive!" She made a movement to leave the room, but as suddenly Mrs. Carew barred her way. "You lunatic! you shall not leave this room!" she hissed, savagely. Kathleen's hot temper, held at bay so long, flamed up at once. "I _will_ go to papa!" she uttered, angrily; and in a low but perfectly clear voice her tormentor answered: "Vincent Carew is _dead_!" She saw the girl start and tremble as if she had been struck. Her sweet face, flushed a moment ago with anger, went deathly white, and she clutched the back of a chair for support. "Vincent Carew is dead!" repeated the pitiless woman before her. She heard a moan of mortal agony issue from Kathleen's pale lips, but she continued, heartlessly: "My husband was lost at sea in the _Urania_, that was burned to the water's edge the very week after my step-daughter was murdered in Pennsylvania. By his will, made in London just before he sailed, he disinherited his daughter for her intimacy with an actor, and left his whole fortune to me and my daughter." "It is monstrous, impossible! You are telling me a falsehood!" moaned Kathleen, with difficulty, for her senses were leaving her under the shock of her step-mother's words. A low gasp came from her lips, she staggered blindly forward, then fell insensible upon the carpet. Mrs. Carew spurned the senseless form with her foot and threw wide the velvet _portière_, calling: "Jones, lift this woman up and put her out into the street. And be careful never to admit disreputable characters inside my doors again, or you may lose your place!" The man, who had been lingering about very near, approached with profuse apologies and excuses. "Carry her out into the street!" repeated his mistress, angrily. Jones took up the light, unconscious figure in his arms and moved toward the door, but he muttered, deprecatingly: "She'll die out there in the snow." "What is that to you? Creatures like _her_ ought to be dead! Do as you are bid, or you will rue it!" stormed his mistress; and Jones, dazed and frightened by her violence, hastened to obey her commands.