“Thank you for your faith in me,” returned Mr. Abbot, gratefully.  “I only wish the world at large was as charitable; if it had been, I need not have been here now, on the verge of the grave, nor been obliged to doom my lonely child to a life of exile, when everything should be at the brightest for her; neither should we have been obliged to disown a name which, until recently had always been an honored and respected one”.

“Then your name is not Abbot,” said Sir William.

“Yes, but that is not the whole of it; I will, however, confide that to you later.  But of course I tell you this in strictest confidence; whatever your decision may be after you hear my story, I charge you not to betray me to any one.”

“You may trust me,” said the young man, quietly.

“Then draw your chair closer, for not even Virgie knows the very worst, and I would not make her burden any heavier when there is no need.”

The young baronet did as he was requested, but he looked both troubled and pale, for he knew not how this story might affect his future prospects.  He was not different from his kind in some points; he belonged to an old and honored family; no shadow had ever tarnished their fair fame; he was proud and tenacious of honor, and his heart was heavy with apprehension as he thought that he might be about to hear some story of crime or wrong that would forever separate him from the woman whom he had learned to idolize.

Mr. Abbot leaned nearer his companion, and in a low voice gave him a brief and rapid account of his life and the adverse fate that had served to banish him to the sparsely populated mountains of Nevada.  It was a strange, sad story of sin, and wrong, and shame, in which a complication of evidence and circumstances had permitted the real offender to escape justice and another to suffer the consequences of his crime.

Sir William Heath never once moved or spoke during its recital, but his fine face expressed pain, and sorrow, and sympathy throughout, and when at length it was finished he still sat for several minutes in his chair, exhausted and panting from weariness and excitement.

At last the young man turned to his companion, a great pity and tenderness shining in his fine, clear eyes.

“Mr. Abbot,” he said, “you have told me one of the saddest stories that I have ever known, and I can find nothing but sympathy and regret for you in my heart.  You have been but the victim of an atrocious wrong—­no stain rests upon your character, if there appears to be upon your name, and so I ask you again, will you give me your daughter, if I find that I have been so fortunate as to have won her love?  What you have related to me can never make any difference in my feelings toward her, and since I shall take her to another country, where nothing of this will ever be known or cast a shadow upon her future, as Lady Heath she will be honored and respected, and I trust, happy.”