card, inscribed "Mr. Walter
Ardworth," said, "If Madame Dalibard can be spoken to for a moment, will
you give her this card?"

The footman hesitatingly stared at the card, and then invited the
gentleman into the hall while he took up the message. Not long had the
visitor to wait, pacing the dark oak floors and gazing on the faded
banners, before the servant reappeared: Madame Dalibard would see him.
He followed his guide up the stairs, while his young companion turned
from the hall, and seated himself musingly on one of the benches on the
deserted terrace.

Grasping the arms of her chair with both hands, her eyes fixed eagerly
on his face, Lucretia Dalibard awaited the welcome visitor.

Prepared as he had been for change, Walter was startled by the ghastly
alteration in Lucretia's features, increased as it was at that moment by
all the emotions which raged within. He sank into the chair placed for
him opposite Lucretia, and clearing his throat, said falteringly,--

"I grieve indeed, Madame, that my visit, intended to bring but joy,
should chance thus inopportunely. The servant informed me as we came up
the stairs that your niece was ill; and I sympathize with your natural
anxiety,--Susan's only child, too; poor Susan!"

"Sir," said Lucretia, impatiently, "these moments are precious. Sir,
sir, my son,--my son!" and her eyes glanced to the door. "You have
brought with you a companion,--does he wait without? My son!"

"Madame, give me a moment's patience. I will be brief, and compress what
in other moments might be a long narrative into a few sentences."

Rapidly then Walter Ardworth passed over the details, unnecessary now to
repeat to the reader,--the injunctions of Braddell, the delivery of the
child to the woman selected by his fellow-sectarian (who, it seemed, by
John Ardworth's recent inquiries, was afterwards expelled the community,
and who, there was reason to believe, had been the first seducer of the
woman thus recommended). No clew to the child's parentage had been given
to the woman with the sum intrusted for his maintenance, which sum had
perhaps been the main cause of her reckless progress to infamy and ruin.
The narrator passed lightly over the neglect and cruelty of the
nurse, to her abandonment of the child when the money was exhausted.
Fortunately she had overlooked the coral round its neck. By that coral,
and by the initials V. B., which Ardworth had had the precaution to have
burned into the chi