may be deemed that in that opinion he was too lenient to himself. Anne,
his wife, listened with averted face and incredulous ears.

"You have wanted a solution to my conduct, Anne--to the strange
preference I seemed to accord the poor boy who is gone; why I could not
punish him; why I was more thankful for the boon of his death than I had
been for his life. He was my child, but he was not Lord Elster."

She did not understand.

"He had no right to my name; poor little Maude has no right to it. Do you
understand me now?"

Not at all; it was as though he were talking Greek to her.

"Their mother, when they were born, was not my wife."

"Their mother was Lady Maude Kirton," she rejoined, in her bewilderment.

"That is exactly where it was," he answered bitterly. "Lady Maude Kirton,
not Lady Hartledon."

She could not comprehend the words; her mind was full of consternation
and tumult. Back went her thoughts to the past.

"Oh, Val! I remember papa's saying that a marriage in that unused chapel
was only three parts legal!"

"It was legal enough, Anne: legal enough. But when that ceremony took
place"--his voice dropped to a miserable whisper, "I had--as they tell
me--a wife living."

Slowly she admitted the meaning of the words; and would have started from
him with a faint cry, but that he held her to him.

"Listen to the whole, Anne, before you judge me. What has been your
promise to me, over and over again?--that, if I would tell you my sorrow,
_you_ would never shrink from me, whatever it might be."

She remembered it, and stood still; terribly rebellious, clasping her
fingers to pain, one within the other.

"In that respect, at any rate, I did not willingly sin. When I married
Maude I had no suspicion that I was not free as air; free to marry her,
or any other woman in the world."

"You speak in enigmas," she said faintly.

"Sit down, Anne, whilst I give you the substance of the tale. Not its
details until I am more myself, and that voice"--pointing to the next
room--"is not sounding in my ears. You shall hear all later; at least, as
much as I know myself; I have never quite believed in it, and it has been
to me throughout as a horrible dream."

Indeed Mr. Carr seemed to be having no inconsiderable amount of trouble,
to judge by the explosions of wrath on the part of the dowager.

She sat down as he told her, her face turned from him, rebellious
at having to listen, but curious yet. Lord Hartledon st