been in vain! It was
to save Sophy from the chance of Jasper's ever placing her within reach
of that woman's example that I took her away."

"Is it not, then, better to forbear asking who were your Sophy's
parents, than to learn from inquiry that she is indeed your grandchild,
and that her mother was Gabrielle Desmarets?"

Waife uttered a cry like a shriek, and then sate voiceless and aghast.
At last he exclaimed: "I am certain it is not so! Did you ever see that
woman?"

"Never that I know of; but George tells me that he heard your son state
to you that she had made acquaintance with me under another name, and if
there was a design to employ her in confirmation of his tale--if he was
then speaking truth to you, doubtless this was the lady of rank referred
to in the nurse's confession--doubtless this was the woman once palmed
upon me as Matilda's confidante. In that case I have seen her. What
then?"

"Mother was not written on her face! She could never have been a mother.
Oh, you may smile, sir; but all my life I have been a reader of the
human face; and there is in the aspect of some women the barrenness as
of stone--no mother's throb in their bosom--no mother's kiss on their
lips."

"I am a poor reader of women's faces," said Darrell; "but she must be
very unlike women in general, who allows you to know her a bit better if
you stood reading her face till doomsday. Besides, at the time you saw
Gabrielle Desmarets, her mode of life had perhaps given to her an aspect
not originally in her countenance. And I can only answer your poetic
conceit by a poetic illustration--Niobe turned to stone; but she had a
great many daughters before she petrified. Pardon me, if I would turn
off by a jest a thought that I see would shock you, as myself, if
gravely encouraged. Encourage it not. Let us suppose it only a chance
that inquiry might confirm this conjecture; but let us shun that chance.
Meanwhile, if inquiry is to be made, one more likely than either of us
to get at the truth has promised to make it, and sooner or later we may
learn from her the results--I mean that ill-fated Arabella Fossett, whom
you knew as Crane."

Waife was silent; but he kept turning in his hand, almost
disconsolately, the document which assoiled him from the felon's taint,
and said at length, as Darrell was about to leave, "And this thing is of
no use to her, then?"

Darrell came back to the old man's chair, and said softly: "Friend, do
not fanc