w--how, in God's name, did you come by it?"

"My mother left it to me, with all her other few books and possessions."

There was a pause. Lord Lackington came closer.

"Who was your mother?" he said, huskily.

The words in answer were hardly audible. Julie stood before him like a
culprit, her beautiful head humbly bowed.

Lord Lackington dropped the book and stood bewildered.

"Rose's child?" he said--"Rose's child?"

Then, approaching her, he placed his hand on her arm.

"Let me look at you," he commanded.

Julie raised her eyes to him, and at the same time dumbly held out to
him a miniature she had been keeping hidden in her hand. It was one of
the miniatures from the locked triptych.

He took it, looked from the pictured to the living face, then, turning
away with a groan, he covered his face with his hands and fell again
into the chair from which he had risen.

Julie hurried to him. Her own eyes were wet with tears. After a moment's
hesitation she knelt down beside him.

"I ought to ask your pardon for not having told you before," she
murmured.

It was some time before Lord Lackington looked up. When at last his
hands dropped, the face they uncovered was very white and old.

"So you," he said, almost in a whisper, "are the child she wrote to me
about before she died?"

Julie made a sign of assent.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-nine."

"_She_ was thirty-two when I saw her last."

There was a silence. Julie lifted one of his hands and kissed it. But he
took no notice.

"You know that I was going to her, that I should have reached her in
time"--the words seemed wrung from him--"but that I was myself
dangerously ill?"

"I know. I remember it all."

"Did she speak of me?"

"Not often. She was very reserved, you remember. But not long before she
died--she seemed half asleep--I heard her say, 'Papa!--Blanche!' and
she smiled."

Lord Lackington's face contracted, and the slow tears of old age stood
in his eyes.

"You are like her in some ways," he said, brusquely, as though to cover
his emotion; "but not very like her."

"She always thought I was like you."

A cloud came over Lord Lackington's face. Julie rose from her knees and
sat beside him. He lost himself a few moments amid the painful ghosts of
memory. Then, turning to her abruptly, he said:

"You have wondered, I dare say, why I was so hard--why, for seventeen
years, I cast her off?"

"Yes, often. You could have come to see us w