to prove the truth at last. Revenge yourself, Miss Snow! Jane is the honored wife of John; Lucy is the confidential housekeeper, comfortable and happy. Tell John the truth, and punish these vixens!"
"Oh, what shall I do? What can I do?" cried Margaret. "I do not want to be cruel, but they ruined my life. Jane---"
"She is coming to see you; and John also," said Hagar, rapidly. "The two will be here in an hour. Then you can denounce the treachery of Jane, and show John those letters to prove it. Ruin her! She ruined you."
Margaret said nothing. She was a religious woman, and nightly recited the Lord's Prayer; "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Now--and in no idle fashion--she was called upon to prove the depth of her belief--the extent of her charity. She was asked to forgive her bitterest enemies those two women who had ruined her life, and who had built up prosperous existences on such ruins. It was hard to say "Go in peace" to these. Hagar was implacable, and urged revenge; but Margaret--weak, sweet soul--leant to the side of charity. Waiting the arrival of her false friend, her lost lover, she prayed for guidance and for strength to sustain her in the coming ordeal. It was the last and most painful phase of her long, long martyrdom.
Mrs. Mask arrived an hour later, as Hagar had announced, but alone. Her husband had been detained by business, she explained to the girl, and would come on later. Like herself, he was anxious to see their dying friend.
"Does he know the truth?" asked Hagar before admitting the visitor.
Jane was now a large and prosperous woman, with an imperious temper, and in an ordinary case would have replied sharply. But the discovery of her treachery, the knowledge that her victim was dying, had broken her down entirely. With a pale face and quivering lips, she shook her head, and signed that she could not bring herself to speak. Hagar stood aside and permitted her to pass in silence. She would have lashed the perfidious woman with her tongue, but deemed it more just that the traitress should be punished by the friend she had wronged so bitterly. Mrs. Mask entered the room, and slowly walked over to the bedside. The blind woman recognized her footstep: yes! recognized it, even after these many years.
"Jane," said Margaret, reproachfully, "have you come to look at your work?"
The prosperous lady recoiled as she saw the wreck of the merry, happy girl she had known thirty years before. Tongue-tied by the knowledge that Margaret spoke truly, she could only stand like a culprit beside the bed, and like a culprit await her sentence. Hagar remained at the door to listen.
"Have you nothing to say?" gasped Margaret, faintly--"you who lied about me with your accomplice--who made my John believe me faithless? My John! alas, he has been yours--won by dishonor--these thirty years!"
"I--I loved him!" stammered the other woman at last, goaded into defending herself.
"Yes, you loved him and betrayed me. For years I have suffered hunger and cold; for years I have lived with a broken heart, alone and miserably!"
"I--I--oh, I am sorry!"
"Sorry! Can your sorrow give me back thirty years of wasted life---of long-enduring agony? Can sorrow make me what I should have been---what you are--a happy wife and mother?"
"Margaret," implored Jane, sinking on her knees, "forgive me! In spite of all my prosperity, I have suffered in secret. My sin has come home to me many a time, and made me weep. I searched for you when I returned to England; I could not find you. Now I am willing to make what expiation you wish."
"Then tell your husband how you tricked him and ruined me."
"No--no! Anything but that, Margaret! For God's sake! I should die of shame if he knew. He loves me now; we are old; we have children. Two of my boys are in the army; my daughter is a wife and mother. What you will, but not that; it would destroy all; it would kill me!"
She bowed her head on the bed-clothes and wept. Margaret reflected. Her revenge was within her grasp. John was coming, and a word from her would make him loathe the woman he had loved and honored these many years--would make him despise the mother of his children. No, she could not be so cruel as to ruin the innocent to punish the guilty. Besides, Jane had loved him, and it was that love which had made her sin. Margaret raised herself feebly, and laid her thin hand on the head of the woman who had martyrized her.
"I forgive you, Jane. Go in peace. John shall never know."
Jane lifted up her face in amazement at this God-like forgiveness. "You will not tell him?" she muttered.
"No. No one shall tell him. Hagar, swear to me that you will keep silent."
"I swear," said Hagar, a little sullenly. "But you are wrong."
"No; I am right. To gain forgiveness we must forgive others. My poor Jane, you were tempted, and you fell. Of Lucy I shall say nothing; God will bring home her sin to her in--Ah! dear Lord! Hagar! I--I--I die!"
Hagar ran to the bedside, and placed her arms round the lean frame of poor Margaret. Her face was gray, her eyes glazed, and her body fell back in the arms of Hagar like a dead thing. She was dying; the end of her martyrdom was at hand.
"Give! give---" she whispered, striving to raise one feeble hand.
"The teapot!" said Hagar. "Quick--give it to her!"
Jane seized the teapot--ignorant that it contained the letters which proved her guilt--and placed it in the hands of the poor soul. She clasped it feebly to her breast, and a smile of delight crept slowly over her gray face.
"John's gift!" she faltered, and--died.
A moment later the door was pushed open, and a portly man with gray hair entered the room. He saw Jane sobbing by the bedside, Hagar kneeling with tears in her eyes, and on the bed the dead body of the woman he had loved.
"I am too late," said he, approaching. "Poor Margaret!"
"She has just died," whispered Hagar. "Take your wife away."
"Come, my dear," said John, raising the repentant woman; "we can do no good. Poor Margaret! to think that she would not marry me! Well, it is best so; God has given me a good and true wife in her place."
"A good and true wife!" muttered Hagar, with irony.
With Jane on his arm, the former lover of Margaret moved towards the door. "I shall of course see to the funeral," he said in a pompous tone. "She shall be buried like a princess."
"Indeed, Mr. Mask!--and she lived like a beggar!"
A faint flush of color crept into the man's cheeks, withered with age. "That was not my fault," he said, haughtily; "had I known of her wants, I would have helped her; though, indeed," he added, bitterly, "she deserves little at the hands of one whom she wronged so deeply. I loved her, and she was faithless."
"Ah!" cried Hagar, and for the moment she felt inclined to tell the truth, but the memory of her promise restrained her; also a glance at the white face of Jane, who thought that her secret was about to be revealed.
"What do you say?" asked John, looking back.
"Nothing. But--the silver teapot?"
"My gift. Let it be buried with her."
He passed through the door without another word, leaving Hagar alone with the dead. Had he known
