e did it without a doubt. Don't go to
say you've bad news this morning.'

Certain it was that Mr. Fishwick looked woefully depressed. The night's
sleep, which had restored the roses to Julia's cheeks and the light to
her eyes, had done nothing for him; or perhaps he had not slept. His
eyes avoided the girl's look of inquiry. 'I've no news this morning,' he
said awkwardly. 'And yet I have news.'

'Bad?' the girl said, nodding her comprehension; and her colour slowly
faded.

'Bad,' he said gravely, looking down at the table.

Julia took her fostermother's hand in hers, and patted it; they were
sitting side by side. The elder woman, whose face was still furrowed by
the tears she had shed in her bereavement, began to tremble. 'Tell us,'
the girl said bravely. 'What is it?'

'God help me,' Mr. Fishwick answered, his face quivering. 'I don't know
how I shall tell you. I don't indeed. But I must.' Then, in a voice
harsh with pain, 'Child, I have made a mistake,' he cried. 'I am wrong,
I was wrong, I have been wrong from the beginning. God help me! And God
help us all!'

The elder woman broke into frightened weeping. The younger grew pale and
paler: grew presently white to the lips. Still her eyes met his, and did
not flinch. 'Is it--about our case?' she whispered.

'Yes! Oh, my dear, will you ever forgive me?'

'About my birth?'

He nodded.

'I am not Julia Soane? Is that it?'

He nodded again.

'Not a Soane--at all?'

'No; God forgive me, no!'

She continued to hold the weeping woman's hand in hers, and to look at
him; but for a long minute she seemed not even to breathe. Then in a
voice that, notwithstanding the effort she made, sounded harsh in his
ears, 'Tell me all,' she muttered. 'I suppose--you have found
something!'

'I have,' he said. He looked old, and worn, and shabby; and was at once
the surest and the saddest corroboration of his own tidings. 'Two days
ago I found, by accident, in a church at Bristol, the death certificate
of the--of the child.'

'Julia Soane?'

'Yes.'

'But then--who am I?' she asked, her eyes growing wild: the world was
turning, turning with her.

'Her husband,' he answered, nodding towards Mrs. Masterson, 'adopted a
child in place of the dead one, and said nothing. Whether he intended to
pass it off for the child entrusted to him, I don't know. He never made
any attempt to do so. Perhaps,' the lawyer continued drearily, 'he had
it in his mind, and when the time came