lity--Lady Devine would have nothing more
to do with him, and that the ordeal of presenting his wife would not
be necessary. Lady Devine, however, had resolved on a different line
of conduct. The intelligence concerning Mr. Richard Devine's threatened
proceedings seemed to nerve her to the confession of the dislike which
had been long growing in her mind; seemed even to aid the formation of
those doubts, the shadows of which had now and then cast themselves upon
her belief in the identity of the man who called himself her son. "His
conduct is brutal," said she to her brother. "I cannot understand it."

"It is more than brutal; it is unnatural," returned Francis Wade, and
stole a look at her. "Moreover, he is married."

"Married!" cried Lady Devine.

"So he says," continued the other, producing the letter sent to him by
Rex at Sarah's dictation. "He writes to me stating that his wife, whom
he married last year abroad, has come to England, and wishes us to
receive her."

"I will not receive her!" cried Lady Devine, rising and pacing down the
path.

"But that would be a declaration of war," said poor Francis, twisting
an Italian onyx which adorned his irresolute hand. "I would not advise
that."

Lady Devine stopped suddenly, with the gesture of one who has finally
made a difficult and long-considered resolution. "Richard shall not sell
this house," she said.

"But, my dear Ellinor," cried her brother, in some alarm at this
unwonted decision, "I am afraid that you can't prevent him."

"If he is the man he says he is, I can," returned she, with effort.

Francis Wade gasped. "If he is the man! It is true--I have sometimes
thought--Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have been deceived?"

She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she had leant upon
her son in the garden where they now stood, nineteen years ago. "I do
not know, I am afraid to think. But between Richard and myself is a
secret--a shameful secret, Frank, known to no other living person. If
the man who threatens me does not know that secret, he is not my son. If
he does know it----"

"Well, in Heaven's name, what then?"

"He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune of the man who
was my husband."

"Ellinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?"

"I will tell you if there be need to do so," said the unhappy lady. "But
I cannot now. I never meant to speak of it again, even to him. Consider
that it is hard to break a silence of nearl