ight cost you your life. As time wore on, I grew
so deadly frightened I dared not undo the mischief my silence had
wrought. Remember, master, when you looked upon me in your bitterest,
fiercest moments of agony, what I did was for _your_ sake; to save
your bleeding heart one more pang. I have been a good and faithful
woman all my life, faithful to your interests."

"You have indeed," he responded, greatly puzzled as to what she could
possibly mean.

She tried to raise herself on her elbows, but her strength failed her,
and she sunk back exhausted on the pillow.

"Listen, Basil Hurlhurst," she said, fixing her strangely bright eyes
upon his noble, care-worn face; "this is the secret I have carried in
this bosom for nearly seventeen years: 'Your golden-haired young wife
died on that terrible stormy night you brought her to Whitestone
Hall;' but listen, Basil, '_the child did not!_' It was stolen from
our midst on the night the fair young mother died."

CHAPTER XXX.

"My God!" cried Basil Hurlhurst, starting to his feet, pale as death,
his eyes fairly burning, and the veins standing out on his forehead
like cords, "you do not know what you say, woman! My little
child--Evalia's child and mine--not dead, but stolen on the night its
mother died! My God! it can not be; surely you are mad!" he shrieked.

"It is true, master," she moaned, "true as Heaven."

"You knew my child, for whom I grieved for seventeen long years, was
stolen--not dead--and dared to keep the knowledge from me?" he cried,
passionately, beside himself with rage, agony and fear. "Tell me
quickly, then, where I shall find my child!" he cried, breathlessly.

"I do not know, master," she moaned.

For a few moments Basil Hurlhurst strode up and down the room like a
man bereft of reason.

"You will not curse me," wailed the tremulous voice from the bed; "I
have your promise."

"I can not understand how Heaven could let your lips remain silenced
all these long, agonizing years, if your story be true. Why, yourself
told me my wife and child had both died on that never-to-be-forgotten
night, and were buried in one grave. How could you dare steep your
lips with a lie so foul and black? Heaven could have struck you dead
while the false words were yet warm on your lips!"

"I dared not tell you, master," moaned the feeble voice, "lest the
shock would kill you; then, after you recovered, I grew afraid of the
secret I had dared to keep, and dared not