e been in bed,
but had walked his room until his wife said to him angrily:

'I thought you were glad; seems to me you don't act like it; but for
pity's sake stop walking, or go somewhere else do it and not keep me
awake.'

Then he went into the hall outside, and there he walked the livelong
night, trying to think what he should say to Jerrie, and wondering what
she would say to him, for he meant to tell her everything. Nothing could
prevent his doing that; and as soon as he thought she would see him he
started for the cottage, taking with him the Bible, the photograph and
the letter he had secreted so long. All the way there, he was repeating
to himself the form of speech with which he should commence, but when
Jerrie said to him, so graciously, 'Good morning, Uncle Frank,' the
words left him, and he began, impetuously;

'Don't call me uncle. Don't speak to me, Jerrie, until you have heard
what I have come to confess on my knees, with my white head upon the
floor, if you will it so, and that would not half express the shame and
remorse with which I stand before you and tell you I am a cheat, a liar,
a villain, and have been since that day when I first saw you and that
dead woman we thought your mother.'

Jerrie was dumb with surprise, and did not speak or move as he went on
rapidly, telling her the whole, with no attempt at an excuse for
himself, except so far as to report what he had done in a business point
of view, making provision for her in case of his death and enjoining it
upon his children to see that his wishes were carried out.

'Here is the Bible,' he said, laying the book in her lap. 'Here is the
photograph, and here the letter which you gave me to post, and which,
had it been sent, might have cleared the mystery sooner.'

He had made his confession, and he stood before her with clasped hands
and an expression upon his face such as a criminal might wear when
awaiting the jury's decision. But Jerrie neither looked at him nor
spoke, for through a rain of tears she was gazing upon the sweet face,
sadder and thinner than the face of Gretchen in the window, but so like
it that there could be no mistaking it, and so like to the face which
had haunted her so often, and seemed so near to her.

'Mother, mother! I remember you as you are here, sick and sorry, but oh,
so lovely!' she said, as she pressed her lips again and again to the
picture, with no thought or care for the wretched man who had come a
step ne