St. Leon Le Roy and his mother had a very quiet drive homeward. Both were busy with their own thoughts. The lady leaned back against the cushions of the phaeton with closed eyes, and a look of grave thought on her pale, wan features. St. Leon, with his calm, dark eyes, and sternly set lips, was as much absorbed as she was in grave and earnest thought. He sat very quietly holding the reins, and neither spoke until they had reached home. Then, when they were sitting together, St. Leon, with an open book before him, her keen eyes noted that he had not turned a page for half an hour, and she spoke abruptly: "St. Leon, what do you think of the famous authoress?" His head drooped still lower over his book, as he answered, quietly: "She is very beautiful and brilliant. I had not expected to find her so young and fair." "She is the loveliest woman I ever saw," said Mrs. Le Roy. "Yes," he answered, simply, in his gravely quiet tone. He did not care to talk. He was like one in a strange, trance-like dream. His soul had been shaken and stirred to its depths by the beautiful woman who had flashed before him with his dead wife's face and voice and the crimson roses in her hands, such as Laurel had loved to gather. The tide of time rolled backward, and in place of the proud, calm woman, the gifted genius before whom he had bowed to-day, came a vision of a simple, dark-eyed girl, wandering through the grounds at Eden, flitting among the fragrant flowers, herself the fairest rose of all. Did she love him, that beautiful impostor, St. Leon Le Roy asked himself, as he had done many times before in the eight years, while that marble cross had towered above the dead heart, whose secret now would never be told? Did she love him, indeed? Had she sinned through her love, not for wealth and position as he had believed that terrible night? And there came back to him through the mist of years the memory of that beautiful, tearful face, and the pleading voice. "Ah, if only I had forgiven her!" he said to himself, in an agony of remorse and regret. "She loved me. I was mad to doubt it. Save for her one fault, her one deception, Laurel Vane was pure and true and innocent. I was hard and cold. Few men but would have forgiven her such a transgression for love's sake." His face fell forward on the open pages of the book where he had been reading drearily enough some mournful lines that seemed to fit his mood: "Glitters the dew and shines the river, Up comes the lily and dries her bell, But two are walking apart forever, And wave their hands for a mute farewell." A light touch fell on the bowed head whose raven locks were threaded with silver that grief, not time, had blanched. He glanced up, startled, into his mother's wistful face. "Well?" he said, with a slight contraction of his straight, dark brows. There was a strange, repressed emotion in her face as she answered: