e will, and succeeded as next
of kin. The property amounts to something more than eighty thousand
pounds, and I have not spent half the income, so there are some savings
besides. Can you not live comfortably on that, and marry Lady Alice?"

Errington gazed at her for a moment speechless. A sigh of relief broke
from Katherine. The color rose to her cheeks, her throat, her small
white ears, and then slowly faded.

"I can hardly understand you, Miss Liddell. I fear you are under the
effect of some nervous hallucination."

"I am not. I can prove I am not." She drew forth the packet inscribed
"MS. to be destroyed," and laid it before him. "There is the will. Thank
God I never could bring myself to destroy it. Here, pray read it." She
opened the document and handed it to him.

There were a few moments' dead silence while Errington hastily skimmed
the will. "_I_ am most reluctantly obliged to believe you," he said at
length. "But what an extraordinary circumstance! How"--looking earnestly
at her--"how did it ever occur to you to--to--"

"To commit a felony?" put in Katherine, as he paused.

"No; I was not going to use such a word," he said, gravely, but not
unkindly.

"If you have time to listen I will tell you everything. Now that I have
told the ugly secret that has made a discord in my life, I can speak
more easily." But her sweet mouth still quivered.

"Yes, tell me all," said Errington, more eagerly than perhaps he had
ever spoken before.

In a low but more composed voice Katherine gave a rapid account of the
circumstances which led to her residence with her uncle: of her intense
desire to help the dear mother whose burden was almost more than she
could bear; then of the change which came to the old miser--his
increasing interest in herself, and finally of his expressed intention
to change his will--as she hoped, in her favor; of her leaving it, by
his direction, in the writing-table drawer; of his terribly sudden
death.

Then came the great temptation. "When Mr. Newton said that if the will
existed it would be in the bureau, but that as he had been on the point
of making another, so he (Mr. Newton) hoped he had destroyed the last,"
continued Katherine, "a thought darted through my brain. Why should it
be found? _He_ no longer wished its provisions to be carried out. I
should not, in destroying or suppressing it, defeat the wishes of the
dead. I determined, if Mr. Newton asked me a direct question, I would
te