She started violently, and looked round towards
the window. "Only the wind among the leaves,"
she said faintly. "My nerves are so shaken, the
least thing startles me. Speak out, for God's
sake! When Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone left this
house, tell me in plain words—why did they go
to London?"

In plain words Mr. Pendril told her:
"They went to London to be married."

With that answer he placed a slip of paper on
the table. It was the marriage certificate of the
dead parents, and the date it bore was March
the twentieth, eighteen hundred and forty-six.

Miss Garth neither moved nor spoke. The
certificate lay beneath her unnoticed. She sat
with her eyes rooted on the lawyer's face; her
mind stunned, her senses helpless. He saw that
all his efforts to break the shock of the discovery
had been efforts made in vain; he felt the vital
importance of rousing her, and firmly and
distinctly repeated the fatal words.

"They went to London to be married," he said.
"Try to rouse yourself: try to realise the plain
fact first: the explanation shall come afterwards.
Miss Garth, I speak the miserable truth! In the
spring of this year they left home; they lived in
London for a fortnight, in the strictest retirement;
they were married by license at the end of
that time. There is a copy of the certificate, which
I myself obtained on Monday last. Read the date
of the marriage for yourself. It is Friday, the
twentieth of March—the March of this present
year."

As he pointed to the certificate, that faint
breath of air among the shrubs beneath the
window, which had startled Miss Garth, stirred
the leaves once more. He heard it himself, this
time; and turned his face, so as to let the breeze
play upon it. No breeze came; no breath of air
that was strong enough for him to feel, floated
into the room.

Miss Garth roused herself mechanically, and
read the certificate. It seemed to produce no
distinct impression on her: she laid it on one
side, in a lost bewildered manner. "Twelve
years," she said, in low hopeless tones—"twelve
quiet happy years I lived with this family. Mrs.
Vanstone was my friend; my dear, valued friend
—my sister, I might almost say. I can't believe
it. Bear with me a little, sir; I can't believe it
yet."

"I shall help you to believe it, when I tell
you more," said Mr. Pendril—"you will
understand me better when I take you back to the
time of Mr. Vanstone's early life. I won't ask
for your attention just yet. Let us wait a little,
until you recover yourself."

They waited a few minutes. The lawyer took
some letters from his pocket, referred to them
attentively, and put them back again. "Can you
listen to me, now?" he asked kindly. She
bowed her head in answer. Mr. Pendril
considered with himself for a moment. "I must
caution you on one point," he said. "If the aspect
of Mr. Vanstone's character which I am now
about to present to you, seems in some respects,
at variance with your later experience, bear in
mind that when you first knew him twelve years
since, he was a man of forty; and that, when I
first knew him, he was a lad of nineteen."

His next words raised the veil, and showed the
irrevocable Past.

CHAPTER XIII.

"THE fortune which Mr. Vanstone possessed
when you knew him" (the lawyer began) "was
part, and part only, of the inheritance which fell
to him on his father's death. Mr. Vanstone the
elder, was a manufacturer in the North of England.
He married early in life; and the children of the
marriage were either six, or seven in number—I
am not certain which. First, Michael, the eldest
son, still living, and now an old man, turned
seventy. Secondly, Selina, the eldest daughter,
who married in after-life, and who died ten or
eleven years ago. After those two, came other
sons and daughters whose early deaths make it
unnecessary to mention them particularly. The
last and by many years the youngest of the
children was Andrew, whom I first knew, as I told
you, at the age of nineteen. My father was then
on the point of retiring from the active pursuit
of his profession; and, in succeeding to his
business, I also succeeded to his connexion with
the Vanstones, as the family solicitor.

"At that time, Andrew had just started in life
by entering the army. After little more than a
year of home-service, he was ordered out with his
regiment to Canada. When he quitted England,
he left his father and his elder brother Michael
seriously at variance. I need not detain you by
entering into the cause of the quarrel. I need
only tell you that the elder Mr. Vanstone, with
many excellent qualities, was a man of fierce and
intractable temper. His eldest son had set him
at defiance, under circumstances which might
have justly irritated a father of far milder
character; and he declared, in the most positive
terms, that he would never see Michael's face
again. In defiance of my entreaties, and of the
entreaties of his wife, he tore up, in our presence,
the will which provided for Michael's share in
the paternal inheritance. Such was the family
position, when the younger son left home for
Canada.

"Some months after Andrew's arrival with his
regiment at Quebec, he became acquainted with
a woman of great personal attractions, who came,
or said she came, from one of the southern states
of America. She obtained an immediate
influence over him: and she used it to the basest
purpose. You knew the easy, affectionate, trusting
nature of the man, in later life—you can
imagine how thoughtlessly he acted on the
impulses of his youth. It is useless to dwell on
this lamentable part of the story. He was just
twenty-one: he was blindly devoted to a worthless
woman; and she led him on, with merciless
cunning, till it was too late to draw back. In
one word, he committed the fatal error of his
life: he married her.