I relate in my own words the strange story Mrs. Carew imparted to me. Although she had erred, her confession was like a rift of sweet light in the dark clouds which hung over Rosemullion. It brought more than hope and comfort to my old heart--it brought joy. In a very few moments you will understand the meaning of my words.

Transport yourself back to the village of Nerac, a year after the marriage of Lauretta and Gabriel Carew. Business of a particular nature took Carew from Nerac for a space of three months; he was absent that time, much against his will, for his wife was near her confinement. This took place safely two weeks after his departure, and he was duly informed of the event. All was well at home; Lauretta and her baby girl were thriving. The days and the weeks passed until two months went by. Carew, in his letters to his wife, expressed the profoundest joy at this precious home blessing. Smarting as he was during that period from the growing coldness of the villagers towards him, and chafing at the injustice of the world, he placed an extravagant value upon this baby girl, who would be, he said, a charm against all evil. He longed for the time when he could hold this blessing in his loving arms; now his happiness was complete; he asked for no greater treasure. In the growth and development of the new young life he would find solace and consolation. His wife was enjoined to take the most tender care of their child. "You and she are one," Carew wrote. "Each is incomplete without the other. I cannot think of you now apart. Were I to lose one my life would be plunged into darkness." Then befel an event which brought horror and grief to Lauretta. It happened that her nurse had fallen sick, and was compelled to go to her own home; there was no other female servant in the establishment capable of undertaking a nurse's duties, and Lauretta therefore took them cheerfully on herself. Two months, as I have said, had passed after the birth of the baby girl. Carew was expected home in a fortnight.

In the dead of night, when all in the house were asleep, with the exception of Lauretta, she, watching by the cradle of her baby, heard a sound of moaning without. She listened intently; it was her own name that she heard uttered in accents of deepest pain and suffering. It was a wild night; heavy rain was falling, the wind was raging; and through the sounds of the storm came the wailing of her name, with half-choked sobs and entreaties for help and pity.

It was but an hour before that Lauretta, awaking, had heard proceed from her baby-girl lying in the cradle by her bedside, some light sounds of difficult breathing which had alarmed her. She got up and dressed, and tended her baby, who, after a while, seemed a little easier; but with the natural anxiety of a young mother Lauretta remained awake watching her child.

The moans for help outside appeared to be especially addressed to her and to her alone, and she seemed to recognise the voice. She crept softly down, and unfastened the door.

"Who is there?" she asked, during a lull in the storm.

The answer came--"Patricia! Help me! Oh help me, and let no one know!"

It was Emilius's wife.

Lauretta assisted her indoors. The poor girl was in a pitiable plight. Famished, ragged, penniless, with a baby in her arms. Both were wringing wet. The pelting rain had soaked them through and through.

Throbbing with sympathy and compassion Lauretta quickly undressed Patricia's baby, and put it in her own warm bed. They had by this time reached Lauretta's bedroom, in which her own child was lying. Lauretta wished to call the servants, but Patricia sobbed that she would fly the house if any eyes but Lauretta's rested on her. It appeared, according to the poor girl's story, that her father was in pursuit of her, and had vowed to kill her and her baby.

"He will kill me--he will kill me!" moaned Patricia. "No one must know I have been here but you--no one, no one!"

And then she rocked herself hysterically and cried, "What will become of my poor baby-girl--what will become of her? I heard that your husband was not here, and it gave me courage to crawl to you. Not that it matters much. It isn't for myself I care. My father may kill me--I have not long to live--but my baby, my baby! Oh, save my darling, save her for the sake of my innocent Emilius!"

It was then that Lauretta noticed for the first time, signs in Patricia's face which, interpreted by her fear and the poor girl's words, seemed to be signs of approaching death. And still Patricia insisted that she would not remain in the house; no force or entreaties could make her.

"What, then, can I do for you?" asked Lauretta; she had already given Patricia food and money.

"Take care of my child," replied Patricia. "Bring her up as your own. Let her never know her father's disgrace, her mother's shame. It will be an angel's deed! For pity's sake, do not deny me! You are rich, and can afford the charity--and if, in your husband's life there has been guilt, this act of charity will atone for it. See here--look on her innocent face. Having the power, you have not the heart to deny me. Ah, if your angel mother were alive, I should appeal to her, and should not appeal in vain! She loved Emilius, and believed in his innocence--yes, to the last she believed in it. I know it for a certainty. You, too, loved my poor martyred husband, and he loved and honoured you and yours with all the strength of his faithful heart. He is innocent, innocent, I tell you! God forbid that I should accuse any one of being guilty--I am too desperate and despairing, and my child's life, the salvation of her soul, are at stake. When your sainted mother died, did all goodness die out of the world? Ah, no--it is not possible; you live again in her. In you she lives again, and all her mercy and sweet kindness which caused us all, from the highest to the lowest, to worship her, to look upon her as something holy. For her sake, if not for my own, you cannot, cannot deny me this charity, you who have it in your power to grant it!"

All this, and more. To say that Lauretta's heart was touched is inadequate; it overflowed; it yearned to assist the suffering mother, so near to her through her young motherhood, through the old ties with Emilius and Eric. A choking cry from her own baby-girl caused her to rush to the cradle. Within the hour a fatal circumstance occurred. Lauretta's baby drew her last breath.

It has nearly all my days been my belief that everything in human life is to be accounted for by human standards. I am shaken in this belief. In this death of Lauretta's baby I seem to see the finger of fate.

Vain to attempt to describe the agonising grief of the young mother. So overpowering was it that she lost consciousness. She recovered her senses when the storm had passed and the morning's light was shining on her. When she awoke to reality, what did she see?

Her husband had suddenly and unexpectedly returned home. She was in bed, and he was sitting by her side.

"Gabriel, Gabriel!" she cried, and, overcome by the terror of her great loss, she would have lost consciousness again but for an unaccountable joyousness in his manner, which mingled strangely with the sympathy he must have felt for her suffering condition.

"It was, doubtless, the storm," he said soothingly. "It raged so fiercely for an hour and more, that I am told it exceeded in violence anything of a like kind that has been experienced in these parts for the last fifty years. No wonder it has had such an effect upon you. Half the trees in our garden are uprooted. It hastened my steps home, for I know how these convulsions of nature affect you. But as you see, the danger has passed; the sun is shining brightly; but not more brightly in the heavens than it is shining in my heart."

She listened to him in amazement, and raising herself in bed she looked around for Patricia. She saw no sign of the hapless woman. The cradle in which her baby-girl had died was by the side of the bed. Carew bent over it and said in a tone of ecstasy:

"Mildred--Mildred! Our Mildred--our dear ewe lamb! How sweetly and soundly she sleeps! Oh, my darling wife! What care I for the injustice of the world now that this treasure is ours? My sweet--my sweet! You recompense for all. Do you know, Lauretta, as travelling home I neared the beloved spot which contained you and our treasure, my heart almost stood still at the fear that I should not find you both well. And now--how can I be sufficiently grateful? Of no account to me is all that transpires outside the circle which contains you and my dear one in the cradle here? I set great store upon our child, Lauretta. She is to me a guarantee of all that is worth living for in the present and the future. When I arrived home and found you prostrate I was at first overwhelmed, but I soon discovered that you had fainted, and I judged rightly, did I not, dear wife of my heart, that, not being strong, you kept it from me while we were apart, in order not to distress me? But now all is well--all shall be well. See, Lauretta, she opens her eyes, our darling. The question is, can I raise her safely and place her by your side? Yes, it is done, and I am the happiest father in the world!"

Was she dreaming? In the clothes in which her child died rested this child of Patricia's, smiling, blooming, laughing and crowing as Lauretta drew her to her breast. Carew's delight, his gratitude, his worship of the babe he believed to be his own, the superstitious store he set upon her young life, were so unbounded, that Lauretta did not dare to undeceive him. She feared, if she told him the truth, that it would unsettle his reason, and produce between her and him a gulf which could never be bridged over. She accepted the strange combination of circumstances, and held her tongue. Her own dear babe was dead, but this new Mildred, whom she grew to love truly as if she were her own, remained, and grew to what she is, a flower of beauty, goodness, and sweetness. Nothing more did Lauretta hear of Patricia; whether she died or lived was not known to her. It is but a detail--but necessary to complete the story--to state here that Patricia lived but a few months after the occurrence of this strange event. More important is it to state that, in some unexplained way, Emilius learns that his daughter lived, and that the Carews were bringing her up as if she were a child of their own. His term of imprisonment over, he had come now to claim her.

It would be impossible for me to give expression to my feelings of gratitude at this wonderful revelation. The despair into which I had fallen at the contemplation of the wrecking of my dear son Reginald's happiness vanished. A fair future lay still before him, and the most cherished hopes of his heart would be realised. I was sure that Emilius would not mar them. A nature so noble as his, so strong in suffering, so heroic in the highest form of human endurance, could not lend itself to the committal of a petty act of selfishness whereby the child upon whose memory he had lived during his cruel and unjust imprisonment would be rendered miserable and unhappy. To this martyred man I was ready to bow my head, ready to give him my friendship, my sympathy, my heart's best fruits of confidence and esteem. Thinking of him, I was awed that a man could live through the anguish that had been his portion, and still retain the inherent dignity and nobility of a great and noble nature.