his face her tear-bathed
eyes, as though sight were restored to her, and she were trying to read
his thoughts in his countenance.

"Why should I tell you?" she said, after a pause: "why reveal to you the
shameful secret, and tell of a misfortune which is without a remedy?
Clement is married: what words of mine can divorce him? And who will
believe the evidence of a blind woman? If I were not blind, I might openly
denounce her, but now--" And again she wrung her hands in unspeakable
anguish.

Horace knelt beside his mother's couch and folded her hands in his own.

"I will believe you, mother," he said, earnestly. "Trust me--tell me all.
If this woman whom my brother has married be an impostor, he may yet be
freed from the matrimonial chain."

"Could that be possible?"

"It may be. Let me try, at least. I will devote myself to your service if
you will but confide in me."

"Close the door, and then come near me, Horace--nearer still. I _will_
tell you all."

Two days later the steamship Pereire sailed from New York for Brest,
numbering among her passengers Horace Rutherford.

Chapter III.

Striking the Flag.

The events narrated in our last chapter took place early in November, and
it was not till the following March that the astonished friends of Horace
Rutherford saw him reappear amongst them as suddenly and as unexpectedly
as he had departed. "Business of importance" was the sole explanation he
vouchsafed to those who questioned him respecting the motive of his brief
European tour; and with that answer public curiosity was perforce obliged
to content itself. Society had, in fact, grown weary of discussing the
affairs of the Rutherford family. Clement Rutherford's _mesalliance_, his
mother's sudden illness at that memorable dinner-party, her subsequent
seclusion from the world, and Horace's inexplicable absence, had all
afforded food for the insatiable appetite of the scandal-mongers. Then
Gossip grew eloquent respecting the flirtations and "fast" manners of
Clement Rutherford's wife, and whispered that the old lady's seizure had
been either apoplexy or paralysis, brought on by her distress of mind at
her son's marriage, and that she had never been herself since. Next, the
elegant establishment of the newly-wedded pair on Twenty-sixth street,
with its gorgeous furniture and costly appointments, furnished a theme for
much conversation, and doubts were expressed as to whether the "Upper Ten"
would honor