"

"Then why did you let them bring us here?"

"Papa," said Grace, "I forgot all about _that_."

"Forgot it!"

"It seems incredible, does it not? But what I saw and felt thrust what I
had only heard out of my mind. Oh, papa! you were insensible, poor dear;
but if you had only seen Walter Clifford when he saved us! I took him for
some giant miner. He seemed ever so much bigger than the gentleman I
loved--ay, and I shall love him to my dying day, whether or not he
has--But when he sprang to my side, and took me with his bare, bleeding
arms to his heart, that panted so, I thought his heart would burst, and
mine, too, could I feel another woman between us. All that might be true,
but it was unreal. That he loved me, and had saved me, _that_ was real.
And when we sat together in the carriage, your poor bleeding head upon my
bosom, and his hand grasping mine, and his sweet eyes beaming with love
and joy, what could I realize except my father's danger and my husband's
mighty love? I was all present anxiety and present bliss. His sin and my
alarms seemed hundreds of miles off, and doubtful. And even since I have
been here, see how greater and nearer things have overpowered me. Your
deadly weakness--you, who were strong, poor dear--oh, let me kiss you,
dear darling--till you had saved your child; Walter's terrible danger.
Oh, my dear father, spare me. How can a poor, weak woman think of such
different woes, and realize and suffer them all at once? Spare me, dear
father, spare me! Let me see you stronger; let me see _him_ safe, and
then let us think of that other cruel thing, and what we ought to say to
Colonel Clifford, and what we ought to do, and where we are to go."

"My poor child," said Hope, faintly, with tears in his eyes, "I say no
more. Take your own time."

Grace did not abuse this respite. So soon as the doctor declared Walter
out of immediate danger, and indeed safe, if cautiously treated, she
returned of her own accord to the miserable subject that had been
thrust aside.

After some discussion, they both agreed that they must now confide their
grief to Colonel Clifford, and must quit his home, and make him master of
the situation, and sole depository of the terrible secret for a time.

Hope wished to make the revelation, and spare his daughter that pain. She
assented readily and thankfully.

This was a woman's first impulse--to put a man forward.

But by-and-by she had one of her fits of hard thinking, an