She would fool Leola, and keep her and Chester Olyphant apart as long as she could; but she had an unerring conviction that Fate in the long run would bring them together. After a moment’s hesitation she began again: “I told you that Uncle Hermann confessed his sins the day he thought he was going to die, but you do not seem curious over it, so I’ll tell you all about it anyway. Uncle Hermann was so furious over Chester Olyphant’s trifling with you and me that on the day when you lay unconscious upstairs he met Chester in the hall and struck him on the head with a blunt iron instrument, so that he fell like one dead.” “Dead!” cried Leola, and she shook with emotion. “Uncle Hermann did not mean to kill him, but he and Joslyn, who happened along at the moment, both thought he was dead, and, to hide the crime, they dragged him into the library, took up the flooring, and dropped him down into an underground passage the family had used in Indian times. So on his disappearance we naturally concluded he had run away to avoid my reproaches, don’t you see?” Leola could only gasp, without speaking, so great was her emotion; and Jessie, enjoying the sensation she was creating, again took up the thread of her story: “So that was what Uncle Hermann had to confess when he thought he was dying. It was the only really wicked thing he ever did, and he wanted to get God’s forgiveness before he died; likewise, he wanted Chester Olyphant to have a Christian burial. Poor Leola, you are faint! All this has been too much for you.” Leola faltered, through stiff, white lips: “No, no; go on, if there is any more to tell.” Jessie laughed, and resumed: “I have kept the best for the last. Just as the men were going to hunt for Chester’s body in the underground passage, Doctor Barnes came along and told them that some little boys had found him alive in the cave, as they called it, and they had taken him to Mrs. Gray’s cottage. Well, to make a long story short, Chester had an awful wound on his head, and a piece of the skull pressed on the brain, and he never recovered health or consciousness till he was taken North for an operation that made him all right again. Mrs. Gray was like a mother to him through it all, and, next to mamma and me, I suppose he considers her his dearest friend. Now, as to our love affair, we made it all up some time ago, and are to be married in July; but I suppose there’s no use asking you to be my bridesmaid, dear Leola?” “No,” the girl answered, curtly, adding: “Jessie, I promised papa to meet him at luncheon, and I shall hardly get back in time if we do not return now. May I invite you to join us?” “Not to-day, thank you, Leola, but I will call on you soon, for I am anxious to see you again, and also to meet your papa. Now if you will be so kind as to drive by Lady De Vere’s, where I am staying with my New York friend, I will be very grateful.”