“Oh, Iris, darling, I am so glad to see you; I have missed you so--I shall be so happy now that you have come home, but, Iris, dear, why do you sob so bitterly?” At the first word of kindness, and the first touch of Grace’s caressing hands, Iris had broken down utterly, and her slender frame was racked with hoarse, convulsive sobs that were pitiful to hear. Mr. Hilton addressed St. John in a harsh, imperative tone: “Take your sister and Isabel back to the parlors while I attend to Iris. This is no scene for either of them.” Iris heard these words, and put aside Grace’s clinging arms. “Let me go, Gracie, dear; I am no fit associate for you now,” she said sadly and bitterly, walking with tottering steps toward the door as she spoke; but Grace St. John reached it before her and prevented her egress. “Wait, Iris; I must understand this scene,” she said firmly, her pretty white-rose face growing paler than its wont, and her blue eyes glancing reproachfully from face to face. “I do not understand why you left your home, Iris. I only know that some great sorrow or misfortune has fallen on you, and changed you almost beyond recognition. I have loved you like a sister since you and I were little children, and yet you say you are no fit associate for me now, Iris! What do you mean? Why do you speak of leaving this house at such an hour, darling? If these doors are closed against you, you shall come home with me. Don’t shudder and shake your head; I tell you, Iris, there is no barrier strong enough to separate us, unless--unless”--the girl hesitated, while a faint tinge of color crept into her white face--“unless you had sinned beyond even a mother’s forgiveness, and----” The cold, metallic tones of Oscar Hilton’s voice here interposed: “Miss St. John, it grieves me beyond the power of words to express, but I am forced to tell you the truth, that this scene may be no longer prolonged. Iris Tresilian has sinned beyond a mother’s forgiveness. My wife has cast her out of her heart, and forbidden me to receive her again in my home. She----” A suppressed cry from Isabel checked the words he was about to have added, and, following the glance of his daughter’s eyes, he saw the cause of her alarm. The door near which Grace and Iris were standing had been pushed softly open, and Evelyn Hilton was crossing the threshold, moving slowly, with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes bent downward. She was attired in a long, loose white wrapper, and her fair hair, escaped from its fastenings, hung far below her waist, giving her a singularly weird and ghostlike appearance. Oscar Hilton’s face grew white as marble, and great beads of perspiration stood out thickly on his forehead. “She is asleep!” he whispered. “Not a sound for your lives. A sudden awakening would cause her death--I have been warned.”