Here was the mother's career as a public singer, chosen (in spite of all efforts to prevent it) by the child! Here (though with other motives, and under other circumstances) was the mother's irregular marriage in Ireland, on the point of being followed by the daughter's irregular marriage in Scotland! And here, stranger still, was the man who was answerable for it--the son of the man who had found the flaw in the Irish marriage, and had shown the way by which her mother was thrown on the world! "My Anne is my second self.

She is not called by her father's name; she is called by mine.

She is Anne Silvester as I was.

Will she end like Me ?"--The answer to those words--the last words that had trembled on the dying mother's lips--was coming fast.

Through the chances and changes of many years, the future was pressing near--and Anne Silvester stood on the brink of it.
"Well ?" she resumed.