"Your own lips, my lady. Last night I came to speak of this. You lay
asleep, and in some troubled dream spoke of the paper, safe in its
writer's keeping, and your strange treasure here, the key of which you
guarded day and night. I divined the truth. Remembering Hester's
stories, I took the key from your helpless hand, found the paper on Sir
Richard's dead breast, and now demand that you confess your part in this
tragedy."

"I do, I do! I confess, I yield, I relinquish everything, and ask pity
only for my child."

Lady Trevlyn fell upon her knees before him, with a submissive gesture,
but imploring eyes, for, amid the wreck of womanly pride and worldly
fortune, the mother's heart still clung to its idol.

"Who should pity her, if not I? God knows I would have spared her this
blow if I could; but Helen would not keep silent, and I was driven to
finish what I had begun. Tell Lillian this, and do not let her hate me."

As Paul spoke, tenderly, eagerly, the curtain parted, and Lillian
appeared, trembling with the excitement of that interview, but conscious
of only one emotion as she threw herself into his arms, crying in a tone
of passionate delight, "Brother! Brother! Now I may love you!"

Paul held her close, and for a moment forgot everything but the joy of
that moment. Lillian spoke first, looking up through tears of
tenderness, her little hand laid caressingly against his cheek, as she
whispered with sudden bloom in her own, "Now I know why I loved you so
well, and now I can see you marry Helen without breaking my heart. Oh,