oss; picked it up
the night of the great party--more than twenty years ago--and concealed
it here, behind the stove; for it was plain enough from whence it had
been taken. Here, then, was the key to Gurdon's attempted burglaries--
the man who, with the knowledge of a hidden treasure, had never been
able to take it from the spot where it had been placed. Had he, then,--
he, Sir Murray Gernon,--been wrong in his suspicions, and was this young
man's father, after all, innocent? No; impossible! he was clear of one
foul stain, but the other mystery was unsolved.

The unwonted feeling of gentleness that had come upon him, for a few
minutes, as he knelt by the injured man, soon passed away, and the old,
hard frown came fiercely back.

There was no one there he could speak to, and say that he was glad the
jewels were found, and that he hoped the other mystery might be cleared
up; but he rose, with a half-shudder, from his knees, as Jane McCray
came forward, pale and trembling, her eyes fixed on his; and as the
recollection of the past came back, he would have turned and left the
room. But Jane's hand was on his arm, and, in a voice that was only
heard by Isa, she said, beseechingly:

"Oh, Sir Murray, don't be hard upon your poor child, as you were on my
own dear lady! I'll never say a word--I'll take all with me to the
grave; only, now that it has pleased Heaven to make all this clear, and
to show you what you would never believe, try and repent, and ask
forgiveness of those you so cruelly wronged! You can't do much now--
it's too late; but oh! Sir Murray--dear master--do something! Twenty
years and more ago, now, since the wrongs were done; and yet, you see,
how judgment comes at last for the wicked. You know now how cruelly
wrong you were; there it all is. You thought, between them, there had
been something done with that cross, and now you see. I hoped that man
had died repenting, in a far-off land; but it was to be his fate to come
and clear this up first--to show you how ill you treated my poor, sweet
lady--to show you her innocence and--"

"Loose your hold, woman!" whispered Sir Murray, hoarsely.

"No," she said, holding his arm tightly--"not yet. You know how I
promised her, Sir Murray, that I'd be, as far as I could, a mother to
that child; and I've tried to. Haven't I, for her sake, sealed my lips,
and kept hid a secret that has made the white come in my hair? Am I not
an old and faithful servant? A