“Yes, ma’am. Have you dined, or shall I tell cook to get something ready?”
“No, no. I have dined,” she answered hurriedly, and went on to the library, to that very room in which she had made the fatal discovery of Fay’s identity with her husband’s first wife.
He was sitting in the lamp-light, just as he was sitting that night when she fell fainting at his feet. The windows were open to the summer night, books were scattered about on the table, and heaped on the floor by his side. Whatever comfort there may be in such company, he had surrounded himself with that comfort. He took no notice of the opening of the door, and she was kneeling at his feet before he knew that she was in the room.
“Mildred, what does this mean? Have we not parted often enough?”
“There was no reason for our parting—except my mistaken belief. I am here to stay with you till my death, if you will have me, George. Be merciful to me, my dearest! I have acted for conscience’ sake. I have been fooled, deluded by appearances which might have deceived any one, however wise. Forgive me, George; forgive me for the sake of all I have suffered in doing what I thought to be my duty!”
He lifted her from her knees, took her to his heart without a word, and kissed her. There was a silence of some moments, in which each could hear the throbbing of the other’s heart.
“You were wrong after all, then,” he said at last; “Vivien was not your half-sister?”
“She was not.”
“Whose child was she?”
“You must not ask me that, George. It is a secret which I ought not to tell even to you. She was cruelly used, poor girl, more cruelly even than I thought she had been when I believed she was my father’s daughter. I have undeniable evidence as to her parentage. She was my blood-relation, but she was not my sister.”