tell me. I beg you will tell it at once,"
said Emma, turning very pale, but controlling herself perfectly and
speaking with calmness.

"Something ridiculous, if it were not so outrageous, I should say, dear
Mrs. Lytton. Is there a light in the parlor?"

"Yes."

"Then come with me there and I will tell you all about it," answered Mr.
Lyle, speaking cheerfully, as he offered his arm to Emma.

They left the room together and went to the parlor, where a lamp was
burning low and shedding a dim light around.

Mr. Lyle led his hostess to a sofa, where he sat down beside her.

And then and there he told her the whole history of the charge that had
been brought against her husband, as it came out upon the preliminary
examination.

Emma listened in unspeakable grief, horror, amazement and mortification.
Yet with all these strong emotions struggling in her bosom, she
controlled herself so far as to preserve her outward composure and
answer with calmness.

"And Mary Grey claims to be _his wife_? I should think the woman were
raving mad, but for the plausible testimony she has managed to bring
together. As it is, I am forced to look upon this in the same light that
you do, as a base conspiracy, in which she has found some skillful
confederates. Of course it must be only the embarrassment and
mortification of a few days and then the whole plot must be exposed.
Such a plot can not, certainly, bear a thorough investigation," she
said.

But though she spoke so confidently, and believed all that she said, yet
her face continued deathly pale and her hands were clutched closely
together on her lap.

Then Mr. Lyle explained to her the delicate motives that governed her
husband in deciding him to remain at the Wendover parsonage, and to
absent himself entirely from Blue Cliffs and from her until this charge
should be disproved.

Emma flushed and paled again, and clutched her hands a little closer,
but made no comment yet. She seemed to wait for Mr. Lyle to proceed.

"He says, my child, and he speaks rightly, that if the accusation
against him was of almost any other felony than what it is, you should
be with him through all he might have to endure. But the accusation
being what it is every consideration for your dignity and delicacy
constrains him to absent himself from you until his fair fame shall be
cleared. He therefore implores you, by me, not to attempt to see him, or
even to write to him, but to let all your communicat