Mrs. Farnum lost her husband soon after her return from America, and afterward made her home mostly with her daughter.  But she was far from being a happy woman, even though she had everything which unlimited wealth could purchase.  Her conscience never ceased to trouble her for the part she had played in helping to ruin the life of that beautiful wife and mother whom she had met in New York.  She was ever haunted by that sad, sweet face.  She had been half-tempted, many times, to confess everything to Sir William, hoping thus to atone in part for what she had done, and because, after she found that Sadie’s cause was hopeless, she began to pity that poor, injured girl; but her fear of Lady Linton, and also of Sir William’s righteous anger, prevented her doing so.

Thus five years passed.

It was now ten years since Sir William Heath’s marriage with Virgie, but he was still true to the one love of his youth.  He continued to cherish her image in his heart, even as he had vowed to do, and though he had come to believe her lost to him forever, he had determined that no other should occupy the place he had once given to her.

But about this time something occurred to create a pleasant change in his saddened life.

A dear friend of his youth died, leaving to his care his fine, manly little son, now in his twelfth year, who had been the pride of his father’s heart, the comfort of widowered, lonely years.

Major Hamilton had been in Her Majesty’s service for many years, and at the time of his death was serving on an important appointment abroad.

During this service he had acquired many honors and great wealth.  His wife was the second daughter of Lord Shaftonsberry, but she had lived only one short month after the birth of their only son, Rupert, who was now to become the ward of Sir William Heath.

He was a noble little fellow, and it was not long before the baronet became fondly attached to him, and believed that perhaps he had at last found, in rearing this child of promise to manhood, something that would add interest and zest to his dreary and monotonous life.

Lady Linton, who was still at Heathdale, and nominally its mistress, received the orphaned stranger with great kindness.

He was heir presumptive to the title and estates of Shaftonsberry, if death should remove the present incumbent who as yet had no children of his own, and this circumstance, in addition to the great wealth which young Rupert inherited from his father, made him a person of considerable consequence.

Her ladyship’s mind, with its habitual cunning, leaped forward eight or ten years, and planned a union of the houses of Linton and Shaftonsberry, by the marriage of her daughter, Lillian, now eleven years of age, with her brother’s ward.

She argued that everything was in her favor for accomplishing this, for the children would be reared beneath the same roof, and it would be comparatively easy to educate them to consider themselves destined for each other.