“How very, very strange!” said the young man, with a perplexed face.
Then his countenance suddenly brightened!
He leaned eagerly forward, laid his hand on Mr. Huntress’ knee, and whispered, excitedly:
“Then he—Everet Mapleson, is her half-brother, and that marriage was nothing but an illegal farce!”
“That is true—I have been thinking of that very thing,” returned Mr. Huntress, grasping the hand upon his knee with cordial sympathy, “and though it has been very hard to have the fact revealed, that our dear girl was not quite our own, yet my joy at having that great trouble so easily wiped out of existence, counteracts all the pain.”
“What is it?” Mrs. Mapleson asked, wondering at their eager whispering and excited manner.
“I will tell you later, madame,” Mr. Huntress replied. “Pardon the interruption, and pray go on.”
“William, the worst of my story is yet to come,” Mrs. Mapleson resumed, turning with a pathetic look to her husband.
He reached forth one hand, and laid it affectionately upon hers.
“Do not think me so hard, Estelle,” he said, in a low, kind tone; “I do not forget the ‘beam’ that was in my own eye, and I have no right to criticise the ‘mote’ in yours, especially when you have been so great a sufferer, and your hands were so tied by your dependent mother and sister. Your heart was all right—you would never have concealed anything but for the force of circumstances.”