“Hagar,” he said again, subduing, by a strong effort, the repugnance he felt at questioning her, “I know all, except where Margaret has gone, and if on this point you can give me any information, I shall receive it most thankfully.”

“Gone!” shrieked Hagar, starting up in bed; “then she has gone.  The play is played out, the performance is ended—­and I have sinned for nothing!”

“Hagar, will you tell me where Maggie is?  I wish to follow her,” said Mr. Carrollton; and Hagar answered:  “Maggie, Maggie—­he said that lovingly enough, but there’s a catch somewhere.  He does not wish to follow her for any good—­and though I know where she has gone I’ll surely never tell.  I kept one secret nineteen years.  I can keep another as long”; and, folding her arms upon her chest, she commenced singing, “I know full well, but I’ll never tell.”

Biting his lips with vexation, Mr. Carrollton tried first by persuasion, then by flattery, and lastly by threats, to obtain from her the desired information, but in vain.  Her only answer was, “I know full well, but I’ll never tell,” save once, when tossing towards him her long white hair, she shrieked:  “Don’t you see a resemblance—­only hers is black—­and so was mine nineteen years ago—­and so was Hester’s too—­glossy and black as the raven’s wing.  The child is like the mother—­the mother was like the grandmother, and the grandmother is like—­me, Hagar Warren.  Do you understand?”

Mr. Carrollton made no answer, and with a feeling of disappointment walked away, shuddering as he thought, “And she is Margaret’s grandmother.”

He found Madam Conway in hysterics on Margaret’s bed, for she had refused to leave the room, saying she would die there, or nowhere.  Gradually the reality of her loss had burst upon her, and now, gasping, choking, and wringing her hands, she lay upon the pillows, while Mrs. Jeffrey, worked up to a pitch of great nervous excitement, fidgeted hither and thither, doing always the wrong thing, fanning the lady when she did not wish to be fanned, and ceasing to fan her just when she was “dying for want of air.”

As yet Mrs. Jeffrey knew nothing definite, except that something dreadful had happened to Margaret; but very candidly Mr. Carrollton told her all, bidding her keep silent on the subject; then, turning to Madam Conway, he repeated to her the result of his call on old Hagar.

“The wretch!” gasped Madam Conway, while Mrs. Jeffrey, running in her fright from the window to the door, and from the door back to the window again, exclaimed:  “Margaret not a Conway, nor yet a Davenport, after all!  It is just what I expected.  I always knew she came honestly by those low-bred ways!”

“Jeffrey,” and the voice of the hysterical woman on the bed was loud and distinct, as she grasped the arm of the terrified little governess, who chanced to be within her reach.  “Jeffrey, either leave my house at once, or speak more deferentially of Miss Miller.  You will call her by that name, too.  It matters not to Mr. Carrollton and myself whose child she has been.  She is ours now, and must be treated with respect.  Do you understand me?”