"Perhaps you are not aware that for many years I have been the friend and confidant of Mrs. Madge Oranmore; but so it is. I was bound to her by the strongest ties of gratitude, and willingly served her in all things.
"One Christmas eve, just nineteen years ago, she sent for me in most urgent haste. I followed her messenger, and was shown to the lady's room. There I found an infant enveloped in a large shawl, which she told me I was to consign to the waves—in a word, to drown it. You start, Squire Erliston, but such was her command. She refused to tell me what prompted her to so fiendish an act. I was in her power, and she knew I dared not refuse; I therefore consented——"
"To drown the child?" said the squire, recoiling in horror.
"Listen—I feared to refuse, and promised to do it. I went to the beach, the tide was out; while I stood hesitating, I heard a sleigh approaching. I wrapped the child up closely, and laid it right in their way, and stood aside to watch the event; determined, in case they did not see it, to provide for it comfortably myself. Fortunately, they saw it. A woman who was in the sleigh took it with her—that woman was Mrs. Gower—that child is now my wife."
"Goo-oo-d Lord!" ejaculated the squire, whose mouth and eyes were open to their widest extent.
"When you told me how she had been found, I knew immediately it was the same. I had long felt remorse for what I had done, and I at once resolved to make reparation to the best of my power, by marrying the foundling. This, Squire Erliston, was the secret of my wish to marry Gipsy, which puzzled you so long.
"Still, I was completely ignorant of her parentage. Owing to my accident, I was unable to visit Mrs. Oranmore; but I wrote to her repeatedly, threatening her with exposure if she did not immediately reveal the whole affair. She grew alarmed at last, and sent me a letter that explained all, only begging me not to disgrace her, by letting the world know what she had done. That letter, I regret to say, has been unhappily lost."
"Well!" said the squire, breathlessly, seeing he paused.
"Well, sir, she told me all. My wife is the child of your eldest daughter, Esther, and Alfred Oranmore."
Bewildered, amazed, thunderstruck, the squire sat gazing upon him in a speechless horror.