Mr. Palma wrote that after years of fruitless effort he had succeeded in obtaining from Peleg Peterson a full retraction of the charges made against her name, whereby General Laurance had prevented a suit against his son.  Peterson had made an affidavit of certain facts, which nobly exonerated her from the heinous imputations with which she was threatened, should she attempt legal redress for her wrongs, and which proved that the defence upon which General Laurance relied, was the result of perjury and bribery.

In addition to the recantation of Peterson, Mr. Palma communicated the joyful intelligence that Gerbert Audre, who was believed to have been lost off the Labrador coast fifteen years before, had been discovered in Washington, where he was occupying a clerical desk in one of the departments; and that he had furnished conclusive testimony as a witness of the marriage, and a friend of Cuthbert Laurance.

The lawyer had carefully gathered all the necessary links of evidence, and was prepared to bring suit against Cuthbert Laurance for desertion and bigamy; assuring the long-suffering wife that her name and life would be nobly vindicated.

Within his letter was one addressed to Mrs. Orme by Peleg Peterson, and a portion of the scrawl was heavily underlined.

“For all that I have revealed to Mr. Palma and solemnly sworn to, for this clearing of your reputation, you may thank your child.  But for her, I should never have declared the truth—­would have gone down to the grave, leaving a blot upon you; for my conscience is too dead to trouble me, and I hate you, Minnie!  Hate you for the wreck you helped to make of me.  But that girl’s white angel face touched me, when she said (and I knew she meant it), ’If I find from mother that you are indeed my father, then I will do my duty.  I will take your hand—­I will own you my father—­face the world’s contempt, and we will bear our disgrace together as best me may.’  She would have done it, at all risk, and I have pitied her.  It is so clear her, and give her the name she is entitled to, that at last I have spoken the truth.  She is a noble brave girl, too good for you, too good for her father; far too good to own Rene Laurance for her grandfather.  When he sees the child he paid me to claim, he will not need my oath to satisfy him that in body she is every inch a Laurance; but where she got her white soul God only knows—­certainly it is neither Merle nor Laurance.  You owe your salvation to your sweet, brave child, and have no cause to thank me, for I shall always hate you.”

Had some ministering angel removed from her hand the hemlock of that loathsome vengeance she had contemplated, and substituted the nectar of hope and joy, the renewal of a life unclouded by the dread of disgrace that had hung over her like a pall for seventeen years?  When gathering her garments about her to plunge into a dark gulf replete with seething horror, a strong hand had lifted her away from the fatal ledge, and she heard the voice of her youth calling her to the almost forgotten vale of peace; while supreme among the thronging visions of joy gleamed the fair face of her blue-eyed daughter.  Had she been utterly mad in resolving to stain her own pure hand by the touch of Rene Laurance?