But the firm belief that your well-meant efforts could only serve to bring to light a story too horrible to be detailed, induced me to join my unhappy mother in schemes to remove or destroy all evidence of the legal union which had taken place between Eveline and myself.

And now let us sit down on this bank,--for I feel unable to remain longer standing,--and have the goodness to listen to the extraordinary discovery which I have this day made." They sate down accordingly; and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his unhappy family history--his concealed marriage--the horrible invention by which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had already taken place.

He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in her hands, had produced those only relating to a period during which, for family reasons, his father had consented to own that young lady as his natural daughter, and showed how impossible it was that he could either suspect or detect the fraud put upon him by his mother, and vouched by the oaths of her attendants, Teresa and Elspeth.

"I left my paternal mansion," he concluded, "as if the furies of hell had driven me forth, and travelled with frantic velocity I knew not whither.

Nor have I the slightest recollection of what I did or whither I went, until I was discovered by my brother.