Leonard, when his wife had read to the
end; "Mrs. Jazepli, Sarah Leeson, and the
servant who disappeared from Porthgenna
Tower, are one and the same person."

"Poor creature!" said Rosamond, sighing
as she put down the letter. " We know now
why she warned me so anxiously not to go
into the Myrtle Room. Who can say what
she must have suffered when she came as a
stranger to my bed-side? Oh, what would I
not give if I had been less hasty with her!
It is dreadful to remember that I spoke to
her as a servant whom I expected to obey
me; it is worse still to feel that I cannot,
even now, think of her as a child should think
of a mother. How can I ever tell her that I
know the secret? how—"  She paused, with
a heart-sick consciousness of the slur that
was cast on her birth; she paused, shrinking
as she thought of the name that her husband
had given to her, and of her own parentage,
which the laws of society disdained to
recognise.

"Why do you stop?" asked Leonard.

"I was afraid—" she began, and paused
again.

"Afraid," he said, finishing the sentence
for her, "that words of pity for that unhappy
woman might wound my sensitive pride, by
reminding me of the circumstances of your
birth? Rosamond, I should be unworthy of
your matchless truthfulness towards me, if I,
on my side, did not acknowledge that this
discovery has wounded me as only a proud
man can be wounded. My pride has been
born and bred in me. My pride, even while
I am now speaking to you, takes advantage
of my first moments of composure, and
deludes me into doubting, in the face of all
probability, whether the words you have
read to me, can, after all, be words of truth.
But, strong as that inborn and inbred feeling
is—hard as it may be for me to discipline
and master it as I ought, and must, and will,
—there is another feeling in my heart that
is stronger yet." He felt for her hand, and
took it in his; then added: "From the hour
when you first devoted your life to your
blind husband,—from the hour when you
won all his gratitude, as you had already won
all his love, you took a place in his heart,
Rosamond, from which nothing, not even
such a shock as has now assailed us, can
move you! High as I have always held the
worth of rank in my estimation, I have
learnt, even before the event of yesterday, to
hold the worth of my wife, let her parentage
be what it may, higher still."

"Oh, Lenny, Lenny, I can't hear you
praise me, if you talk in the same breath as
if I had made a sacrifice in marrying you!
But for my blind husband I might never have
deserved what you have just said of me.
When I first read that fearful letter, I had
one moment of vile ungrateful doubt if your
love for me would hold out against the
discovery of the secret. I had one moment of
horrible temptation that drew me away from
you when I ought to have put the letter into
your hand. It was the sight of you, waiting
for me to speak again, so innocent of all
knowledge of what had happened close by
you, that brought me back to my senses, and
told me what I ought to do. It was the
sight of my blind husband that made me
conquer the temptation to destroy that letter
in the first hour of discovering it. Oh, if I
had been the hardest-hearted of women,
could I have ever taken your hand again,—
could I kiss you, could I lie down by your
side, and hear you fall asleep, night after
night, feeling that I had abused your blind
dependence on me to serve my own selfish
interests? knowing that I had only
succeeded in my deceit because your affliction
made you incapable of suspecting deception?
No, no; I can hardly believe that the basest
of women could be guilty of such baseness as
that; and I can claim nothing more for
myself than the credit of having been true to my
trust. You said yesterday, love, in the
Myrtle Room, that the one faithful friend to
you in your blindness who never failed, was
your wife. It is reward enough and consolation
enough for me, now that the worst is
over, to know that you can say so still."

"Yes, Rosamond, the worst is over; but
we must not forget that there may be hard
trials still to meet."

"Hard trials, love? To what trials do
you refer?"

"Perhaps, Rosamond, I over-rate the
courage that the sacrifice demands; but, to
me, at least, it will be a hard sacrifice of my
own feelings to make strangers partakers in
the knowledge of the secret that we now
possess."

Rosamond looked at her husband in
astonishment. "Why need we tell the secret
to anyone?" she asked.

"Assuming that we can satisfy ourselves
of the genuineness of that letter," he
answered, "we shall have no choice but to
tell the secret to strangers. You cannot forget
the circumstances under which your father
—under which Captain Treverton——"

"Call him my father," said Rosamond
sadly. "Remember how he loved me, and
how I loved him, and say 'my father,'
still."

"I am afraid I must say ' Captain Treverton'
now," returned Leonard, "or I shall
hardly be able to explain simply and plainly
what it is very necessary that you should
know. Captain Treverton died without
leaving a will. His only property was the
purchase-money of this house and estate;
and you inherited it, as his next of kin——"

Rosamond started back in her chair and
clasped her hands in dismay. " Oh, Lenny,"
she said simply. "I have thought so much
of you, since I found the letter, that I never
remembered this!"

"It is time to remember it, my love. If