"Well, you are sorry for leaving mama in that old cabin, aren't you?"

It forced him to turn his eyes away from her, and with a tremor of pain in his voice, muttered: "Twenty times the child has said that to me today," and, turning to her, he said gently and with infinite compa.s.sion:

"Dorothy, you are too young to comprehend. It is my intention to remove you from the home of your birth, to take you East, and educate you there. Now, don't trouble me with questions, dear," and he kissed the fair young brow and, looking into her sweet innocent brown eyes, he saw reflected in them her mother's.

Then he turned his head aside and muttered: "So much like her mother!

Oh, Constance! Constance! My judgment condemns you, but my heart--my heart will not leave you!"

Down from the house leisurely strolled Mr. Harris and Hazel.

"His Grace has just communicated to me the most amazing information about Virginia. It is so absurd that I felt quite angry with him for mentioning it," Hazel said quite seriously.

"And what did he tell you?" inquired Mr. Harris. "If it is no secret?"

"He told me that it is common talk that she was found in the cabin with Constance at the time of Dorothy's rescue by her father, having just rewarded the Italian for abducting the child, and that they both swooned when uncle found them there."

"Lord Beauchamp must have been misinformed," broke in Mr. Harris, with a grave face. "If such were the case Sam would have told me. All idle tattle--mischievous gossip!"

"Ah! Mr. Thorpe and Dorothy!"

"Oh, darling!" exclaimed Hazel, and she gathered the child in her arms, kissed her, and flew off to the house with her.

"Well, John, I am glad to meet you again," shaking his hand, "though to tell the truth, I did not expect you."

"It has cost me bitter memories, Mr. Harris."

"I have long since discovered," continued Mr. Harris, "that while time cannot heal a deep-rooted sorrow, it softens many of its asperities.

When do you depart for the East?"

"I have made arrangements to leave tomorrow."

"You are doing just what would prompt any man in like position to do.

I trust we shall hear from you occasionally."

"It is now my purpose, after arranging for Dorothy's education, to travel abroad for an indefinite period, but I shall endeavor to keep in communication with you."

Linking his arm in that of his guest, Mr. Harris said: "Come, John, let us join Mrs. Harris on the piazza. She is anxious to have a chat with you."

Turning in the direction of the house, to their surprise they confronted Virginia. Mr. Thorpe at once withdrew his arm from that of Mr. Harris, and stepping aside with an offended dignity, remarked reproachfully:

"I was not aware of having merited the honor you do me."

Mr. Harris threw up his hands deprecatingly. He understood the purport of the allusion and was dumb. He had been quite unaware of the presence of Virginia, and knowing of the estrangement between brother and sister, felt embarra.s.sed. He was rescued from his dilemma by Virginia, who addressed him in a grave voice.

"Please leave us, Mr. Harris."

His respect and esteem for her was sincere and great. Her good sense and becoming modesty had often impressed him as a woman of sterling qualities. Utterly disbelieving and discrediting the insinuations and innuendoes which Rutley had set afloat to his own advantage concerning her antagonistic relation with her brother, he conceived her to be the unhappy subject of a combination of circ.u.mstances over which she had no influence. A prey to anxiety, she retained little of the color and less of the vivacity formerly so conspicuously her heritage; yet her broad brow glistened white with an intellectuality that beautified her with spiritual chast.i.ty.

He was struck, too, with her very serious and pallid face, and his heart went out to her. He bowed low in answer to her request, and without a word gravely turned away and left them.

John Thorpe saw that Virginia was suffering from some great mental strain, nevertheless he chose to appear icily indifferent. He attributed her contrite appearance to the fact that he had surprised her and Constance in the cabin with the abductor of his child. He could conceive of no reason for them being there other than collusion with the Italian, for he believed they were cognizant of Dorothy's place of imprisonment all the time, and while it was possible the Italian held the child for ransom, they kept her place of concealment secret, under the belief that she was safer from seizure by Thorpe than at home or with friends, and also that it would draw the sympathy of acquaintances to Constance, and though Dorothy told him in her childish way that Virginia had given George Golda money, a minute search of his clothes and about the cabin failed to disclose it, and John Thorpe interpreted her defense of Dorothy as an unexpected contingency arising from the frenzied fury of the Italian to save himself from capture when he found escape cut off.

When Virginia swooned, it mercifully relieved her from a most embarra.s.sing and painful position.

Such were his thoughts as he directed a stony stare of freezing haughtiness upon her--the woman, his sister, whom he now regarded as beyond the pale of blood relationship.

"I did not expect to meet you here," he said in a voice grave with a sense of the worry from which he was suffering and from which wrong he could not, no matter how he reasoned, disa.s.sociate the name of his sister.

"I have tried to find you--to meet you--to--in short, to demand an explanation of this affair; but until now I have been unsuccessful."

She spoke hesitatingly and with a slight tremor in her voice, otherwise there was no indication of the great emotion that she was laboring under. In short, her demeanor, while firm and of simple dignity, was of the gravest character imaginable.

"You have broken all ties between us," he answered slowly.

"John, John! Don't turn away! Stop!" and she held up a warning finger as, stepping in front of him, she barred his way.

"You shall hear me. For I believe what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance. But first, what cause have you for divorcing Constance?"

"You ask that question?" he slowly emphasized.

"Yes, I ask that question," as steadily and definitely she regarded him.

"If on my return from China you had not concealed from me her infatuation for that man--that fellow Corway--this unhappy trouble would have been over long ago."

"I have concealed nothing from you! John, I am sure it is all a mistake."

"All a mistake?" he angrily repeated. "You concealed nothing from me!

When her notoriety was of such common gossip that strangers were familiar with details!"

"If you had not degraded Constance by so meanly believing the palpable artifice of a--a stranger," quietly and gravely replied Virginia--"if you had but given her an opportunity to defend herself, you would have found no cause for divorce; no cause even to fear the tainted breath of scandal could ever attach to Constance. Oh, John, it is all wrong!

Constance is innocent! She has never been untrue to you!"

Excitedly he turned to her, his face ablaze with the fervor of his amazement, as he repeated:

"Innocent--Constance! Constance innocent!"

"Yes," promptly responded Virginia. "I who know it, swear it is true--swear it is the truth in the sight of that high throne before which we shall all stand in the Judgment Day.

"It was I who originated the dreadful insinuations against Mr.

Corway."

"Yes, yes! That may be true--but--" and Thorpe's manner again relapsed to a heart-aching resignation, as he sadly added: "He wore my wife's ring!"

"Yes, that is true, John, but unknown to her and most a.s.suredly without her consent," eagerly a.s.serted Virginia, and she related the manner Corway obtained the ring, and how she subsequently had indiscreetly informed Beauchamp it was "your gift to Constance."

Those of poor wayward humanity who, in moments of great pa.s.sion have done a great wrong, know what torture is silently endured as day and night, in moments awake and in dreams asleep, the crime haunts them, and knocks, knocks, knocks, without ceasing, upon the soul's door for release of the secret.

Such were Virginia's feelings, and the sweet happiness experienced when she confessed her sin shone in her face with convincing truthfulness.