“I shall not tell you what your mother’s name was--nor mine--I call myself Leon Lyndon now,” he said curtly, continuing: “Suffice it to say you were born after your mother deserted me in disgust at my poverty. I did not suspect you were coming, and, if she guessed it, she selfishly kept the tender secret. You were born, and became the joy and pride of her life while I hated her for having deprived me of your love. I believe I was half mad in my troubles those days, and I contrived to see you often unsuspected by your mother, while you were out with your nurse. Your baby beauty and sweetness grew upon me so that at last I stole you away, gloating over the thought that I could punish her at last for her cruelty to me. I took you to my dear, sweet sister Jessie, left you in her care, and became an exile from my native land. The story of those twelve years is too long for you now, but at length the longing for you drew me back again to New York, where I searched for you vainly for a week before I chanced on you at last.” “You found me lying like one dead in the snow!” she cried, and he started, answering evasively: “How came you there, my darling? I am very anxious to hear your story up to that point.” To his surprise she burst into tears, sobbing unrestrainedly for several moments. He waited patiently, stroking the fair head tenderly till the healing tears ceased to flow, then, little by little, he drew her on, until the story of her young life and her piteous little love secret lay bare before his eyes. He was startled, touched, and pained; the tears were very near his eyes. He kissed her tenderly, pityingly. “It was very sad, my child, but you are so young you will soon get over this sorrow. It was rash in you to try to throw away your life like that, and I am very glad that I found you in your extremity and placed you in a physician’s care, else your life must have paid the forfeit of your desperate deed,” he said rapidly, determining in his mind that she should never know what had happened to her that night after she fell down in the snow and thought herself dying. “But life is very sad,” she murmured plaintively. “He--he--will marry that scornful beauty, Miss Ellyson, and--and--they will laugh together many times over me--and my broken heart.” The tears came again in a burning shower, but he was glad to see them fall; he knew they would relieve her pain of wounded love and pride. When she grew quiet he said tenderly: “You must forget him, dear, as they will forget you in their happiness. I will take you away from New York, where you shall never meet those cruel hearts again.” “I should like to go--I should like to forget!” she sighed, and his heart throbbed with divine sympathy, for he knew well all the anguish of her plaint.