nderstood the situation; my father
himself had returned, had been in these rooms, and had had an
interview with his brother! I knew of the marked resemblance between
them, and at once questioned, How had that interview ended? Who was
the murdered man? Who was the murderer? That was the cause of my
trip to England to try to find some light on this subject. I need
no words to tell you the agony of suspense that I endured for the
next few weeks, and you will understand now why I would not--even
to yourself--declare my innocence of the murder of Hugh Mainwaring.
I would have bourne any ignominy and dishonor, even death itself,
rather than that a breath of suspicion should have been directed
against my father's name."

"My hero!" she exclaimed, smiling through her tears; then asked,
"When and how did you learn the real facts?"

"Almost immediately upon my return to this country, and from Mrs.
LaGrange," and he told her briefly of his last interview with that
unhappy woman. "Up to the day of the funeral, she was ignorant of
the truth, but on that day she detected the difference, which none
of the others saw. She knew and recognized my father."

Standing at last on the western veranda, they took their farewell
of Fair Oaks.

"Beautiful Fair Oaks!" Winifred murmured; "once I loved you; but
you could never be our home; you hold memories far too bitter!"

"Yes," Harold replied, gravely, "it is darkened by crime and stained
with innocent blood. The only bright feature to redeem it," he
added with a smile, "is the memory of the love I found there, but
that," and he drew her arm closely within his own, "I take with me
to England, to my father's home and mine."

Together they left the majestic arched portals, and going down the
oak-lined avenue, through the dim twilight of the great boughs
interlocked above their heads, passed on, out into the sunlight,
with never a fear for shadows that might come; each strong and
confident in the love that united them "for better for worse, for
richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, . . . till death us
do part."

End of Project Gutenberg's That Mainwaring Affair, by Maynard Barbour

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