which had accompanied this frightful revelation, echoed by an agonised cry, half tenderness, half rage, from her husband, who had entered the room unobserved, and now clasped her passionately in his arms. The carriage-wheels we had heard were his. It was long before I could recall with calmness the tumult, terror, and confusion of that scene. Mr Arbuthnot strove to bear his wife from the apartment, but she would not be forced away, and kept imploring with frenzied vehemence that Robert—that her boy should not be taken from her.

'I have no wish to do so—far from it,' said Danby with gleeful exultation. 'Only folk must be reasonable, and not threaten their friends with the hulks'——

'Give him anything, anything!' broke in the unhappy lady. 'O Robert! Robert!' she added with a renewed burst of hysterical grief, 'how could you deceive me so?'

'I have been punished, Agnes,' he answered in a husky, broken voice, 'for my well-intending but criminal weakness; cruelly punished by the ever-present consciousness that this discovery must one day or other be surely made. What do you want?' he after awhile added with recovering firmness, addressing Danby.

'The acknowledgment of the little bit of paper in dispute, of course; and say a genuine one to the same amount.'

'Yes, yes,' exclaimed Mrs Arbuthnot, still wildly sobbing, and holding the terrified boy strained in her embrace, as if she feared he might be wrenched from her by force. 'Anything—pay him anything!'

At this moment, chancing to look towards the door of the apartment, I saw that it was partially opened, and that Danby's wife was listening there. What might that mean? But what of helpful meaning in such a case could it have?

'Be it so, love,' said Mr Arbuthnot soothingly. 'Danby, call to-morrow at the Park. And now, begone at once.'

'I was thinking,' resumed the rascal with swelling audacity, 'that we might as well at the same time come to some permanent arrangement upon black and white. But never mind: I can always put the screw on; unless, indeed, you get tired of the young gentleman, and in that case, I doubt not, he will prove a dutiful and affectionate son——Ah, devil! What do you here? Begone, or I'll murder you! Begone, do you hear?'

His wife had entered, and silently confronted him. 'Your threats, evil man,' replied the woman quietly, 'have no terrors for me now. My son is beyond your reach. Oh, Mrs Arbuthnot,' she added, turning towards and addressing that lady, 'believe not'——

Her husband sprang at her with the bound of a panther. 'Silence! Go home, or I'll strangle'——His own utterance was arrested by the fierce grasp of Mr Arbuthnot, who seized him by the throat, and hurled him to the further end of the room. 'Speak on, woman; and quick! quick! What have you to say?'

'That your son, dearest lady,' she answered, throwing herself at Mrs Arbuthnot's feet, 'is as truly your own child as ever son born of woman!'

That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring in my ears! I felt that the woman's words were words of truth, but I could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon.

'The letter,' continued Mrs Danby, 'which my husband found and opened, would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of my child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that, after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterwards lent myself to Danby's evil purposes. But I chiefly feared for my son, whom I fully believed he would not have scrupled to make away with in revenge for my exposing his profitable fraud. I have sinned; I can hardly hope to be forgiven, but I have now told the sacred truth.'

All this was uttered by the repentant woman, but at the time it was almost wholly unheard by those most interested in the statement. They only comprehended that they were saved—that the child was theirs in very truth. Great, abundant, but for the moment, bewildering joy! Mr Arbuthnot—his beautiful young wife—her own true boy (how could she for a moment have doubted that he was her own true boy!—you might read that thought through all her tears, thickly as they fell)—the aged and half-stunned rector, whilst yet Mrs Danby was speaking, were exclaiming, sobbing in each other's arms, ay, and praising God too, with broken voices and incoherent words it may be, but certainly with fervent, pious, grateful hearts.

When we had time to look about us, it was found that the felon had disappeared—escaped. It was well, perhaps, that he had; better, that he has not been heard of since.