midst, bringing scandal and dishonor as her dower."

"And who, then, is she?"

Mrs. Rutherford turned toward him and fixed on his face her tear-bathed
eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read
his thoughts in his countenance.

"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the
shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy?
Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will
believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly
denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable
anguish.

Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own.

"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all.
If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be
freed from the matrimonial chain."

"Could that be possible?"

"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if
you will but confide in me."

"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_
tell you all."

Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest,