correspond with Uncle Reuben it will be
by telegram at my end of the line.

"'Before I close to-night I must again assure you that a happier view
of the outlook for the coming two months will be taken. Your
happiness must be mine:

"'Well! thou art happy, and I feel
That I should thus be happy, too;
For still my heart regards thy weal
Warmly--'"

"Stop, Nellie! James Hosley, you wrote that letter! Do you deny it?"

Gabrielle Tescheron crumpled Hygeia's note in her clenched hand as she
said that, and arose, fastening her steady eyes on the crouching form of
the cripple, who appeared to cringe under the blast of the storm. He had
tried to be prepared, but he failed utterly when he attempted to speak.
He was seen to raise his hand and elevate his eyebrows, but now words
were impossible; a low murmur and heavy breathing, an effort to stand
and a surrender in despair to the hopelessness of his fate, were all
that marked Jim Hosley's resistance to this accusation.

"You wrote this letter--you wrote the others--do you deny it?"

This came quickly after the first question from her lips; her manner
completely changed, betraying the nervous strain under which she
suppressed her emotions, as she bravely faced the man for whom the world
had seemed a small sacrifice. Jealousy might have waged its battle in
privacy; but the revelation of a detestable crime so convincingly
corroborated by this letter from the nurse, whose pricking conscience
had at last reported my version of Hosley with her view of the ownership
and purpose of the damaging poetic documents, outlined to Gabrielle's
quick intelligence the method of a deep, patiently pursued course of
crime. Her father's claims, to which her deaf ears had been turned in
the ardor of youth, came now with terrible force to win instant
conviction. She would not falter in the crisis. The man should be given
a hearing--brief, to be sure--but he should have it.

"Speak!" The command brought the Gibsons to their feet, but Jim was
paralyzed and dumb. After a long pause, he took all the responsibility
for my folly and pleaded:

"I wrote it, Gabrielle--and forgive me."

"Then you must leave this house at once. You go your way and I shall see
you no more. I know it all now. This letter from the nurse--Mr.
Hopkins--my father--they were right. I have been blind. You have
deceived me, just as you deceived this poor woman, whose awful fate I
know. Mr. and M