"Mine is the fault," she said. "If your daughter had suspected the madness that filled me, she would have betrayed me--she would never have tolerated it for one hour. She wished me to go abroad with her; she did not dream of the truth. But I--I sent Clarice back to her, and I stayed on at Eden. The fault is mine; the consequences," her voice faltered almost to a moan, "be upon my own head." St. Leon had never yet spoken a word. Pale, statue-like, he stood, his hearing strained to catch every word that fell from the lips of his wife--his wife, whom he had believed to be an angel, but whom he now knew as a false and reckless woman who had stolen into his home and heart under a lying guise. "And you," said Mr. Gordon, sternly--"who are you that have dared do this terrible wrong? What is your name? Whence came you?" She turned suddenly and lifted her dark, anguished eyes to her husband's face in mute wonder and entreaty. In its lightning scorn, its terrible indignation, she read her doom. With a moan of despair she let the long, dark lashes fall until they shaded her burning cheeks and answered Mr. Gordon: "Do not ask me my name nor my history. What can it matter to you who hate me? My heart is broken. Let me shroud myself in merciful mystery." "You refuse to disclose your identity?" said Mr. Gordon, wonderingly. "I refuse," she answered, with a reckless defiance born of despair. And at that moment a mocking laugh, cruel as a fiend's, rang startlingly through the splendid room. Every eye turned toward the sound. Through the wide lace curtains that shaded the low French windows a man stepped into the room--Ross Powell! Laurel saw him, and a shriek of despair rose from her lips at the sight of her enemy's evil, triumphant face. She covered her face with her trembling hands and sunk down upon the floor, crouching like a guilty creature from the angry judges surrounding her. Ross Powell went forward to his employer, Mr. Gordon. "Sir," he said, respectfully, "you wish to know the name of this matchless hypocrite and deceiver. I can soon enlighten you." "Speak, then," Mr. Gordon answered, quickly, gazing at his clerk in surprise and wonder. "You remember Vane, the drunken writer, who died almost a year ago?" said Ross Powell brutally. "Yes; but what has Louis Vane to do with this mysterious girl?" inquired Mr. Gordon, bluntly. "Everything," answered the villain, sarcastically, "for this fine lady--the mistress of Eden--is old Vane's daughter!" "No!" exclaimed Mr. Gordon, astonished. "Yes," triumphantly. "Her name is Laurel Vane, and she belonged to me. She was promised to me, but when her tippling father drank himself to death, she ran away, and, though I have been on her track ever since, I could never find her until to-night. And no wonder; for, with her humble antecedents, I never dreamed of looking for my runaway sweetheart in the wife of the aristocratic Mr. Le Roy!"