“You shall hear.  You know I placed my little Marie at school.  The school-mistress employed a dressmaker to whom the child took a fancy; she insisted on taking me to see her, and to choose some fal-lals.”  He stopped again, his mouth twitched, his fingers played with his watch-chain.  “When the young woman came into the room,” he resumed, “I thought I should have dropped.  She was the living image of my poor mother, only younger.  I could not speak for a minute.  At last, when the child had kissed her and chatted a bit, I managed to ask if I might come back and speak to her alone, as she was so like a lady I once knew, that I wanted to put a few questions to her.  She seemed a little disturbed; but told me I might come in the evening.  I went.  I asked her about her parentage; she knew very little, save that she had been born in South America.  She offered, however, to show me her mother’s picture, and, when she brought it, I not only saw it was my mother’s likeness, but a picture I knew well.  Her initials were on the case, R. L. Then I told her everything.  I proved to her that I was her half-brother.  How bitterly she cried when I described a little brooch with my hair in it, which Rachel still keeps.  She has seen our mother kiss it and weep over it.  My heart went out to her; she is second now only to my child.  Then, Katherine, she told me her own sad story, and the part you played in it.  How you saved her, and gave her hope and strength.  Give me your hand!  I’ll never forget this service.  It binds me more, a hundredfold more, than if you had done it for myself.  But neither entreaties nor reproaches could induce her to tell me the name of the villain who—­has she told you?” he interrupted himself to ask sternly.

“She never named his name to me,” cried Katherine.  “It is cruel to ask her.  And of what possible advantage would the knowledge be?  Any inquiry, any disturbance, would only punish her.”

Liddell started up, and walked to and fro hastily.  “That’s true,” he exclaimed; “but I wish I had my hand on his throat.”

“That is natural; but you must think of Rachel, she has suffered so much.”

“She has!” said George Liddell, throwing himself into his chair again.  “But you don’t know the sort of pain and sweetness it is to talk of my poor mother to her daughter!  It makes a different and a better man of me.  Rachel is a strong woman,” he added, after a moment’s thought; “she wishes our relationship to be kept secret.  It is no credit to anyone, she says, and might be injurious to little Marie; we can be friends, and she need never want a few hundreds to help on her business.  It seems that to please his people her father, on returning to England, only used his second name, which I never knew.  It is a sorrowful tale for you to listen to—­you are white and trembling, my girl,” he added, with sudden familiarity,—­“but I haven’t done yet; you have laid me under obligations I can never repay.  I could not offer a woman like you