"Is it possible? Oh, then, of course the stories I have heard are all
false. Very likely; no fiction in scandal ever surprises me. Poor dear
Lilian, then, never ran away from her mother's house?"

I smothered the angry pain which this mode of questioning caused me; I
knew how important it was to Lilian to secure to her the countenance and
support of this absolute autocrat; I spoke of Lilian's long previous
distemper of mind; I accounted for it as any intelligent physician,
unacquainted with all that I could not reveal, would account. Heaven
forgive me for the venial falsehood, but I spoke of the terrible charge
against myself as enough to unhinge for a time the intellect of a girl so
acutely sensitive as Lilian; I sought to create that impression as to the
origin of all that might otherwise seem strange; and in this state of
cerebral excitement she had wandered from home--but alone. I had tracked
every step of her way; I had found and restored her to her home. A
critical delirium had followed, from which she now rose, cured in health,
unsuspicious that there could be a whisper against her name. And then,
with all the eloquence I could command, and in words as adapted as I could
frame them to soften the heart of a woman, herself a mother, I implored
Mrs. Poyntz's aid to silence all the cruelties of calumny, and extend her
shield over the child of her own early friend.

When I came to an end, I had taken, with caressing force, Mrs. Poyntz's
reluctant hands in mine. There were tears in my voice, tears in my eyes.
And the sound of her voice in reply gave me hope, for it was unusually
gentle. She was evidently moved. The hope was soon quelled.

"Allen Fenwick," she said, "you have a noble heart; I grieve to see how it
abuses your reason. I cannot aid Lilian Ashleigh in the way you ask. Do