announcement of my marriage with Maude in the newspapers that aroused him.  He had thought I was acting this bad part deliberately; and he went off at once to Hartledon in anger; found I had gone abroad; and now came to me on my return, still in anger, saying at first that he should proceed against me, and obtain justice for Agnes.  When he found how utterly ignorant of wrong I had been, his tone changed; he was truly grieved and concerned for me.  Nothing was decided:  except that Dr. Mair, in his compassion towards Lady Maude, promised not to be the first to take legal steps.  It seemed that there was only him to fear:  George Gordon was reported to have gone to Australia; the old housekeeper was dead; Agnes was deranged.  Dr. Mair left, and Carr and I sat on till midnight.  Carr took what I thought a harsh view of the matter; he urged me to separate from Maude—­”

“I think you should have done so for her sake,” came the gentle interruption.

“For her sake! the words Carr used.  But, Anne, surely there were two sides to the question.  If I disclosed the facts, and put her away from me, what was she?  Besides, the law might be against me—­Scotland’s iniquitous law; but in Heaven’s sight Maude was my wife, not the other.  So I temporized, hoping that time might bring about a relief, for Dr. Mair told me that Miss Waterlow’s health was failing.  However, she lived on, and—­”

Lady Hartledon started up, her face blanching.

“Is she not dead now?  Was she living when you married me?  Am I your wife?”

He could hardly help smiling.  His calm touch reassured her.

“Do you think you need ask, Anne?  The next year Dr. Mair called upon me again—­it was the evening before the boy was christened; he had come to London on business of his own.  To my dismay, he told me that a change for the better was appearing in Miss Waterlow’s mental condition; and he thought it likely she might be restored to health.  Of course, it increased the perplexities and my horror, had that been needed; but the hope or fear, or what you like to call it, was not borne out.  Three years later, the doctor came to me for the third and final time, to bring me the news that Agnes was dead.”

As the relief had been to him then, so did it almost seem now to Anne.  A sigh of infinite pain broke from her.  She had not seen where all this was tending.

“Imagine, if you can, what it was for me all those years with the knowledge daily and nightly upon me that the disgraceful truth might at any moment come out to Maude—­to her children, to the world!  Living in the dread of arrest myself, should the man Gordon show himself on the scene!  And now you see what it is that has marred my peace, and broken the happiness of our married life.  How could I bear to cross those two deeply-injured children, who were ever rising up in judgment against me?  How take our children’s part against them, little unconscious things?  It seemed that I had always, daily, hourly, some wrong to make up to them.  The poor boy was heir to Hartledon in the eyes of the world; but, Anne, your boy was the true heir.”