“When we separate at the depot, you to take one train and I another, we may never meet again in this world, and I must say something to you, which I could mention to no one else.  There is a cloud hanging over me.  I have always lived in its cold shadow, even here where there is, or was, so much to make me happy, and this mystery renders me unwilling to go into the world of curious, harsh people, who will wonder and question.  I know that Orme is not my real name, but am forbidden to ask for information until I am grown.  I have full faith in my mother:  I must believe that all she has done is right, no matter how strange things seem; but on one point I must be satisfied.  Is my mother’s name Minnie?”

“I cannot tell you, for it was the only secret dear Peyton ever kept from me.  In speaking of her, he always called her Mrs. Orme.”

“Do you know anything about the loss of a valuable paper, once in Mr. Hargrove’s possession?”

“A great many years ago, before you came to live with us, some one entered this room, opened the secret drawer of Peyton’s writing desk, and carried off a tin box containing some important papers.”

“And suspicion rested on my mother?”

“My darling girl, who could have been so cruel as to distress you with such matters?  No one——­”

Regina interrupted her, with an imperative motion of her hand: 

“Please answer my question.  Truth is better than kindness, is more to me than sympathy.  Did not you and Mr. Hargrove believe that mother took—­stole that box?”

“Peyton never admitted to me that he suspected her, though some circumstances seemed to connect the disappearance of the papers with her visit here the night they were carried off.  He accused no one.”

Regina was deeply moved, and her whole face quivered as she answered: 

“Oh! how good, how truly charitable he was!  I wonder if in all the wide borders of America there are any more like him?  If I could only have told him the facts, and satisfied him that my mother was innocent!  But I waited until Hannah could get away in peace, and before she was ready to start God called him home.  In heaven of course he knows it all now.  I promised Hannah to tell no one but him, and to defer the explanation until she was safe, entirely beyond the reach of his displeasure; but since you suspected my mother, it is right that I should justify her in your estimation.”

Very succinctly she narrated what had occurred on the evening of the storm, and the incidents of the ensuing morning, when she followed Hannah into the churchyard.  As she concluded, an expression of relief and pleasure succeeded that of astonishment which had rested on Mrs. Lindsay’s worn and faded face.

“I am heartily glad that at last the truth has been discovered, and that it fully exonerated your mother from all connection with the theft; for I confess the circumstances prejudiced me against her.  Let us be encouraged, my dear little girl, to believe that in due time all the other mysteries will be quite as satisfactorily cleared up.”