“When you sent me into your father’s room after that letter he had in his pocket, I took time to read it.  She said, there, that she didn’t trust me, and that I had always loved your father.  It was true enough, but I didn’t know she knew it.

“After you took the letter out, I put in the one to Laurence Austin.  I’d opened it and read it some little time back.  I thought it was time he knew her as she was, and I never thought about no name being mentioned in it.

“When he tore off the bandages, he read that letter, and never knew that it wasn’t meant for him.  Then, when you came in in that old dress of your mother’s, he thought it was her come back to him, and never knew any different.”

There was a long pause.  “Well?” said Barbara, wearily.  It did not seem as if anything mattered.

“I just want you to know that I’ve hated your mother all my life, ever since she came home from school.  I’ve hated you because you look like her.  I’ve hated your father because he talked so of her all the time, and hated myself for loving him.  I’ve hated everybody, but I’ve done my duty, as far as I know.  I’ve scrubbed and slaved and taken care of you and your father, and done the best I could.

“When I put that letter into his pocket, I intended for him to know that Constance was in love with another man.  I’d have read it to him long ago if I’d had any idea he’d believe me.  When he thought it was for him, I was just on the verge of telling him different when you came in and stopped me.  You looked so much like your mother I thought Constance had taken to walking down here daytimes instead of back and forth in my room at night.

“I suppose,” Miriam went on, in a strange tone, “that I’ve killed him—­that there’s murder on my hands as well as hate in my heart.  I suppose you’ll want to make some different arrangements now—­you won’t want to go on living with me after I’ve killed your father.”

[Sidenote:  A Wonderful Joy]

“Aunt Miriam,” said Barbara, calmly, “I’ve known for a long time almost everything you’ve told me, but I didn’t know how father got the letter.  I thought he must have found it somewhere in the desk or in his own room, or even in the attic.  You didn’t kill him any more than I did, by coming into the room in mother’s gown.  What he really died of was a great, wonderful joy that suddenly broke a heart too weak to hold it.  And, even though I’ve wanted my father to see me, all my life long, I’d rather have had it as it was, and he would, too.  I’m sure of that.

“He told me once the three things he most wanted to see in the world were mother’s letter, saying that she loved him, then mother herself, and, last of all, me.  And for a long time his dearest dream has been that I could walk and he could see.  So when, in the space of five or ten minutes, all the dreams came true, his heart failed.”

“But,” Miriam persisted, “I meant to do him harm.”  Her burning eyes were keenly fixed upon Barbara’s face.