ly. In some things, perhaps, she
erred towards me; but I ought to have shown her more sympathy, and have
dealt gently with her tender nature, so unlike my own. May God forgive
us both!--God, in whose presence we shall both be, when you, our
daughter, read this record. And may He bless you evermore, prays your
loving father,

"Angus Rothesay.

"Celia Manners was her name. Her child she called _Christal_."

It ceased--this voice from the ten years' silent grave of Angus
Rothesay. His daughter sat motionless, her fixed eyes blindly
out-gazing, her whole frame cold and rigid, frozen into a statue of
stone.

CHAPTER XLII.

Rivetted by an inexplicable influence, Olive had read the letter
through, without once pausing or blenching;--read it as though it had
been some strange romance of misery, not relating to herself at all.
She felt unable to comprehend or realise it, until she came to the
name--"Christal." Then the whole truth burst upon her, wrapping
her round with a cold horror, and, for the time, paralysing all her
faculties. When she awoke, the letter was still in her hand, and from
it still there stood out clear the name, which had long been a familiar
word. Therefore, all this while, destiny had been leading her to work
out her father's desire. The girl who had dwelt in her household for
months, whom she had tried to love, and generously sought to guide,
was--_her sister_.

But what a chaos of horror was revealed by this discovery! Olive's first
thought was of her mother, who had showered kindness on this child
of shame; who, dying, had unconsciously charged her to "take care of
Christal."

With a natural revulsion of feeling, Olive thrust the letter from her.
Its touch seemed to pollute her fingers.

"Oh, my mother--my poor, wronged mother!--well for you that you
never lived to see this day. You--so good, so loving, so faithfully
remembering him even to the last. But I--I have lived to shrink with
abhorrence from the memory of my own father."

Suddenly she stopped, aghast at thinking that she was thus speaking of
the dead--the dead from whom her own life had sprung.

"I am bewildered," she murmured. "Heaven help me! I know not what I say
or do." And Olive fell on her knees.

She had no words to pray with; but, in such time of agony, all her
thoughts were prayers. After a while these calmed her, and made her
strong to endure one more trial--different from, perhaps even more awful
than, all the r