Carmontelle found, as once before, his old acquaintance with the mother superior at the convent of good avail in securing admittance. The good woman met him in some wonder, and bowed stiffly to the little lawyer, who was looking about him in a good deal of curiosity.

"What is the meaning of this visit?" she inquired, with calm dignity, although perfectly certain that it related to Una.

She was not mistaken, for he immediately asked for her, and was told that Una would receive no one.

"She is constantly engaged in devotion, fitting herself to retire forever from the world."

"She will have to let the devotions go, and return to the world," Carmontelle answered, bluntly.

"Monsieur!" reproachfully.

"I mean what I say," he replied, earnestly. "I have to-day made discoveries that prove her the daughter of honorable parents—also heiress to a large fortune. There is nothing now to prevent her return to the world and to her husband, who has suffered so much from their separation."

Madame, the superior, was unaffectedly happy at hearing this news.

"Thank le bon Dieu that it is so!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, how the poor little one has suffered, believing the falsehood of wicked Madame Lorraine."

She went hurriedly to seek Una with the joyful tidings, but it was some time before she returned.

In truth, Una had been almost overcome by the shock of joy after the long night of sorrow and despair.

"I am not the child of infamy! The blood that flows through my veins is noble and untainted! Heaven, I thank Thee!" cried the tortured girl, falling down upon her knees and hiding her face in her hands as she leaned forward upon her low cot bed.

To the good nun's announcement that she was an heiress, she had paid no attention, everything else being swallowed up in the glad news that her birth was honorable.

After the sorrow and despair she had experienced such a revulsion of feeling, such intense happiness rushed over her that her senses for a moment succumbed to the shock, and the nun, bending forward to look at her, presently found she had quietly fainted.

The application of a little cold water soon revived her, and the mother superior exclaimed, cheerfully:

"Oh, fy! my dear, I did not know that you would take my good news so ill, or I would have broken it to you more carefully."

"Tell me more. What is my name? Who are my kinspeople, and why was I left so long to the cruel mercy of Madame Lorraine?" exclaimed Una, eagerly.

"Come with me. Our old friend, Pierre Carmontelle, is down-stairs. He will tell you all."

"Monsieur Carmontelle! He has always been my friend," cried the girl, thinking remorsefully of the way she had snubbed him that day in Boston when he had followed her to the banker's gate, frightened because she feared he would betray her to Eliot.

Now she ran joyfully to his presence, and he started in surprise at her wondrous beauty that shone star-like from its setting of simple convent black.

"Heavens, Una! how lovely you have grown!" he exclaimed, gayly. "I may take the privilege of praising you, although you are a married woman, since you are my kinswoman by two distinct ties."

"Your kinswoman!" the girl echoed, amazedly, and he explained, laughingly:

"You are my cousin's daughter for one thing, and for the other you are my sister-in-law."

"What can you mean?"

"I married Maud Van Zandt two weeks ago," he replied.

The warm color came rushing into Una's pale cheeks.

"Oh!" she cried, "how happy you make me. And dear Maud—is she here?"

"She is at my home, the Magnolias. Have you any one else to ask about, belle cousine?" chaffingly.

"E—dith?" falteringly, and blushing up to her eyes.

"Edith is at the Magnolias, too. Ah, I see your eyes asking me about some one else. No wonder you are ashamed to speak his name after the shameful way you have treated him. Well, I will be generous, Mrs. Van Zandt. Eliot—ah! now I see how you can blush—is also at my home, and presently I am going to take another guest to the Magnolias—even yourself."

"Not—not until you tell me all!" the girl faltered, trembling with such happiness that she could scarcely speak.

So, then and there he told her all the story of Mme. Lorraine's treachery and cupidity—told her everything, except the story of Eliot's illness that might possibly terminate fatally, and so wreck the happy ending of their checkered love story.

When he had finished the story, with the aid of the little lawyer, who was charmed with the beauty of the young heiress, he said, kindly:

"Will you come with me to the Magnolias, now, Una?"

She looked radiantly at the nun, who answered, with genuine happiness:

"Of course she will, monsieur, as soon as she retires to her room and assumes her worldly garb. I am sorry to lose our sweet Una, but not selfish enough to regret her good fortune that has made it possible for her to be happy once more in the world. I see plainly that Heaven did not intend for her to be a nun."

Father Quentin began to believe this, too, when she withdrew to acquaint him with the startling news, and when Una came down, after laying off her convent dress forever, in hat and cloak, to depart from Le Bon Berger, the old priest's aged hands were laid solemnly on her golden head a moment, and his quavering old voice tenderly blessed her and commended her to the care of Heaven.

All the nuns and convent pupils were assembled to bid her adieu, and followed by their tears and blessings, Una went away with Carmontelle, her new-found kinsman, to the Magnolias.