“This, my dear Cora, is the substance of the story told me by Ann White on the day that I called on her in answer to her letter.  What do you think of it?” inquired Mr. Fabian when he had finished his narrative.

“I think the cruel neglect of her step-parents and the sufferings of her childhood accountable for all her faults, and I feel very sorry for her, notwithstanding that she seems to be a very heartless animal,” replied Corona.

“That is the secret of the wonderful preservation of her youth and beauty even up to this present time.  Nothing wears a woman out as fast as her own heart.”

“You engaged her as you promised to do, but why did you introduce her at Rockhold as a single girl, and why under an alias?” gravely inquired Corona.

“I introduced her as a single girl at her own request because of her extreme youth and her timidity.  She naturally shrank from being known as a discarded wife or a doubtful widow.  Besides, I never did say she was a single girl.  I merely presented her as Rose Flowers, and left it to be inferred from her baby face that she was so.”

“But why Rose Flowers when her name was Ann White?”

“What a cross-questioner you are, Corona! but I will answer you.  Again it was by her own desire that I presented her as Rose Flowers, which was not an alias, as she explained to me, but a part of her true name.  She had been baptized as Rose Anna Flowers, which was the maiden name of her grandmother, her father’s mother.”

Cora might have asked another question, not so easily answered, if she had known the circumstances to which it related, namely:  why Mr. Fabian had fabricated that false story of the young governess which he palmed upon his parents; but, in fact, Cora, at that time a child seven years old, had never heard of it.  But she made another inquiry.

“What became of Rose Flowers after she left us?  Did she really go to another place?  Who was—­Captain Stillwater?”

“Mr. Fabian drove slowly and thoughtfully on without answering her question until she had repeated it.  Then he said: 

“Cora, my dear, that is a story I cannot tell you.  Let it be enough for me to say, the Stillwater episode in the life of this lady is the ground upon which I forbid my wife to visit her and object to my niece associating with her.”

“Does Violet know the Stillwater story?”

“No; not so much of it even as you have heard.  Now, look here, Cora, you think it inconsistent perhaps that I should have brought this woman to Rockhold years ago to become your governess, and now, when she is my father’s wife, object to your intimacy with her.  In the first instance she has been far, very far, ‘more sinned against than sinning;’ she had been very imprudent, that was all.  She was really the wife, by Scotch law, of the boy she ran away with and then lost.  I saw nothing in her case that ought to prevent her entrance into a respectable family, and Heaven knows I pitied her and tried to save her by bringing her to Rockhold.  I saved her only for a few years.  After she left us—­but there, I cannot tell you that story!  You must not be intimate with her.”