"Papa, I kneel to you, because I have a terrible confession to make to you and mamma," she cried hoarsely. "It must be told to you; because in the dark of last night I repented my sins, and I bury the dark secret in my heart no longer. I must tell you all, and then you will despise me so much you will be glad and willing for me to hide my unhappy life in convent walls!" They were so amazed and startled they could not move or speak to interrupt their daughter; and there, upon her knees, her face colorless, her eyes like black stars, Ethel poured forth her wretched story--the envy and jealousy that made her hate her little sister and wish her dead. Nothing was kept back; nothing glossed over. Ethel painted her sins as black as her worst enemy could have done. "When I came away and left my sister in the burning house I was a murderess at heart," she said. "When I stole her love letter from under her pillow and then made her give Arthur to me I was a fiend, and then I betrayed her into the power of a devil. And, papa, but for the little revolver you gave her, he might have murdered my little sister!" They could only look and listen, they were speechless with surprise and horror. Ethel's self-arraignment was tragic in its intensity. She went on wildly: "Yet Precious forgave me--kept my hideous secrets, loved me, and forgave me. Can you fancy anything so angelic? Can you fancy how even my wicked heart was touched, how at last I began to repent, and to long to atone for my evil deeds? Alas! there was but one way! I began to wonder how I could give Arthur back to her, for I knew she was too noble to take him away, believing that I loved him! Suddenly the way opened clearly before me. Do you understand, papa?" A startled cry came from the senator's lips, and Ethel continued in that anguished voice: "You blamed me, upbraided me, papa, for jilting Arthur, yet it was the noblest act of my wayward life, my atonement to Precious for all my sins." With a sudden movement of her hand she pushed from her brows the black lace turban. It fell at his feet, and Ethel's wealth of hair swept unbound about her shoulders like a stream of silver. In the sleepless agony of one long night all those raven tresses had faded to beautiful silvery white! * * * * *