The poor erring father, reduced to want, and smitten by disease, had crept back in the disguise of a beggar to ask the charity of his deserted wife and children, and to breathe his last sigh among loving forgiving hearts.

It was Jane, stern Jane, who had denounced him so cruelly, cherished such bitter resentment against him; it was Jane, who had happened, of a summer evening in her mother's absence, to open the door to his knock, had taken him into her arms and into her heart, had nursed him, caressed him, watched and prayed with him.

So that was the end of poor Jane's hardness of heart.

It was all washed away in tears at her father's death-bed.

The last trace of it vanished at sight of Rachel's remorse.
My dear Mrs.Hollingford, my sweet old mother! These two shocks well nigh caused her death; but when she had nobly weathered the storm she found a daughter whom she had mourned as lost, living and breathing and loving in her arms, and her brave heart accepted much comfort.
And what about those three kind souls whom we left in such sudden consternation by the open window in the drawing-room at the Hall?
Why, of course, they came to inquire into the mystery.