that marriage up on the Scotch hill-side were legal,
as he believed it was, and thus all stain were wiped away from his
name, what of Mary's name? If Judge Bolitho had married another woman
while his mother was alive, then he would not only be a bigamist, but
Mary's name would be tarnished--Mary, whose happiness was to him the
most precious thing in the world. But even that was not all. He
understood now what his mother meant when she said he would be driven
mad, understood why she was afraid to tell him. Mary was his own
sister! His sister!

"Forgive me, Paul, for telling you;" and his mother looked at him with
hungry, beseeching eyes. "Forgive me, I could not help it. You
see--well, it was necessary that you should know."

"And I for the moment felt like believing in God," he said, like one
talking to himself. He thought he was going to fall on the hard stone
floor. His head was whirling, his limbs were trembling. He seemed to
have lost all control over himself.

"My sister!" he said. "Great God! My sister! And I love her as a man
loves his wife!" A new passion, a new force had entered his life now.
His longing for revenge was conquered by another feeling, a nobler
feeling. Love for Mary Bolitho was stronger than a desire to be
revenged on his father. At all hazards she must not suffer.
But--but---- No, he could not grasp it. His brain refused to fasten
upon the real issues of the case. His thoughts were as elusive as a
mist cloud. His brain swam. Everything was real, terribly real, but
nothing was real! What could he do?

Never, surely, was man placed in such a horrible position. He had
thought a few nights before, when he had fought his battle between love
for his own mother and the desire to keep disgrace and death from her,
and the love for his own life, a life which could be made bright and
beautiful, that the great struggle was over. It seemed to him then
that he had fought his last battle and had won it. Duty had overcome
self-love. But it seemed as nothing compared with the issues which now
stared him in the face.

"My sister! My sister!" he repeated. "The same father, although not
the same mother. Do I love her the less? Does my heart cry out for
her one whit the less because we are children of the same father?"

No. Why, he could not understand, but she seemed even more to him than
ever. The new link which bound them together seemed also, if possible,
to strengthen his