w allows him--nothing!"

There was no doubting the truth of her words. It was impossible that
even a woman whose home had been desecrated, as hers had been, would
invent a lie so self-condemning. Yet John Rex forced himself to appear
to doubt, and his dry lips asked, "If then your husband was not the
father of your son, who was?"

"My cousin, Armigell Esme Wade, Lord Bellasis," answered Lady Devine.

John Rex gasped for breath. His hand, tugging at his neck-cloth, rent
away the linen that covered his choking throat. The whole horizon of
his past was lit up by a lightning flash which stunned him. His brain,
already enfeebled by excess, was unable to withstand this last shock.
He staggered, and but for the cabinet against which he leant, would
have fallen. The secret thoughts of his heart rose to his lips, and were
uttered unconsciously. "Lord Bellasis! He was my father also, and--I
killed him!"

A dreadful silence fell, and then Lady Devine, stretching out her hands
towards the self-confessed murderer, with a sort of frightful respect,
said in a whisper, in which horror and supplication were strangely
mingled, "What did you do with my son? Did you kill him also?"

But John Rex, wagging his head from side to side, like a beast in the
shambles that has received a mortal stroke, made no reply. Sarah Purfoy,
awed as she was by the dramatic force of the situation, nevertheless
remembered that Francis Wade might arrive at any moment, and saw her
last opportunity for safety. She advanced and touched the mother on the
shoulder.

"Your son is alive!"

"Where?"

"Will you promise not to hinder us leaving this house if I tell you?"

"Yes, yes."

"Will you promise to keep the confession which you have heard secret,
until we have left England?"

"I promise anything. In God's name, woman, if you have a woman's heart,
speak! Where is my son?"

Sarah Purfoy rose over the enemy who had defeated her, and said in
level, deliberate accents, "They call him Rufus Dawes. He is a convict
at Norfolk Island, transported for life for the murder which you have
heard my husband confess to having committed--Ah!----"

Lady Devine had fainted.

CHAPTER XVI. FIFTEEN HOURS.

Sarah flew to Rex. "Rouse yourself, John, for Heaven's sake. We have not
a moment." John Rex passed his hand over his forehead wearily.

"I cannot think. I am broken down. I am ill. My brain seems dead."

Nervously watching the prostrate figure on the