matter what it costs me. You little
know on the brink of what a crime you stand."

He laughed a bitter laugh; for was he not already steeped in crime? She
thought him pitiless and malignant when he was only hopeless and
self-condemned.

"Do you remember Gethin, Richard, and all that happened there? Can you
not guess why I was made to marry--within--what was it?--a month, a
week, a day--it seemed but the next hour--after I lost you? You have had
twenty years of misery for my sake; but so have I for yours. Did my
husband love me, think you? Did he love my child? He had good cause, if
he had only known, to hate us both. Can you not guess it?"

He looked at her with eager hope--a trembling joy pervaded him. But hope
and joy had been strangers to him so long that he could scarce recognize
them for what they were.

"My Charley is yours also, Richard--your own son."

Richard burst into tears. There was somebody still to love him in the
world--his own flesh and blood--somebody to live for! The thought
intoxicated him with delight; a vision of happiness floated before him
for an instant; then was swallowed up in darkness, as a single star by
the gloom of night. His own flesh and blood; ay, perhaps inheriting the
same nature as his father. It was only too likely, from what he had seen
of the lad; and he had himself done his best to develop the evil in him,
and to crush the good.

"Don't weep, dear Richard: kiss me."

He shrank from her proffered lips with a cold shudder. "Nay, I can not
kiss you. Do not ask me why, Harry. Never ask me; but I never can."

She looked at him with wonder, for she saw that his wrath had vanished.
His tone was tender, though woeful, and his touch as he put her aside
was as gentle as a child's.

"As you please, Richard," said she, humbly, and with a deep blush. "I
only wished for it as a token of your forgiveness. It is not necessary;
those tears have told me we are reconciled. But you will kiss Charley."

"Nay; he must never know," answered Richard gloomily.

"I had forgotten," said Harry, simply. "You can guess by that the
loyalty of my heart toward you, Richard. I forgot that to reveal it
would be to tell my darling of his mother's shame. But you will be kind
and good to him; you will undo what you have done of harm; you will lead
him back to Agnes, and then he will be safe."

"Yes, yes," muttered Richard, mechanically; "I will undo so far as I can
what I have done of harm. I will do my