"My poor child, why would you know it?" faltered Elaine.
"That I may hunt him down!" Irene blazed out. "That I may punish him for your wrongs and mine!"
"Alas, my darling, vengeance belongs to Heaven," sighed the martyred Elaine.
"It belongs to you and to me," cried Irene. "His name, his name!"
"I cannot tell you, dear," wept the wronged woman.
"Then I will go to Bertha," flashed the maddened girl.
"Bertha is bound by an oath never to reveal that fatal name," Elaine answered.
The door opened, Mrs. Brooke entered, stern and pale. She glanced scornfully at Irene, then turned to her daughter:
"Elaine, I am sorry this has happened," she said. "I could not keep Bertha from betraying you. The poor girl was driven mad by her wrongs. If Irene had remained away from the ball to-night, as I bade her do, you would have been spared all this. Her disobedience has caused it all."
Old Faith put her head, with its flaring cap-ruffles, inside the door before Elaine could speak.