that saw Alice the bride of Templeton, the last hope was gone, and the
mother was bereft and childless!

The blow that stunned Alice was not, after the first natural shock of
sympathy, an unwelcome event to the banker. Now _his_ child would be
Alice's sole care; now there could be no gossip, no suspicion why, in
life and after death, he should prefer one child, supposed not his own,
to the other.

He hastened to remove Alice from the scene of her affliction. He
dismissed the solitary attendant who had accompanied her on her journey;
he bore his wife to London, and finally settled, as we have seen, at a
villa in its vicinity. And there, more and more, day by day, centred his
love upon the supposed daughter of Mrs. Templeton, his darling and his
heiress, the beautiful Evelyn Cameron.

For the first year or two, Templeton evinced some alarming disposition to
escape from the oath he had imposed upon himself; but on the slightest
hint there was a sternness in the wife, in all else so respectful, so
submissive, that repressed and awed him. She even threatened--and at one
time was with difficulty prevented carrying the threat into effect--to
leave his roof forever, if there were the slightest question of the
sanctity of his vow. Templeton trembled; such a separation would excite
gossip, curiosity, scandal, a noise in the world, public talk, possible
discovery. Besides, Alice was necessary to Evelyn, necessary to his own
comfort; something to scold in health, something to rely upon in illness.
Gradually then, but sullenly, he reconciled himself to his lot; and as
years and infirmities grew upon him, he was contented at least to have
secured a faithful friend and an anxious nurse. Still a marriage of this
sort was not blessed: Templeton's vanity was wounded; his temper, always