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A DREADFUL TEMPTATION. 83
and tones struck Xenie with inward terror.’ Yet it seemed
to her impossible that Howard Templeton could really know
the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet she tried to
brave it out in very desperation.
‘*How dare you say so?” she repeated, but her voice fal-
tered, and she tremblec. so that she could scarcely hold the
little child in her arms.
Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly,
filled with a yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her
from the consequences of her sin, but so horror-stricken
that she could not even speak.
Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scorn-
ful amazement.
‘‘Madam,” he said, in clear, ringing, vibrant. tones, ‘‘I
can scarce believe that you will try to persist in this terrible
deception in the face of all that I have said. Listen, then,
and | you shall know why I dare confront. you with your
sin.
‘Speak on,” she answered, cresting her beautiful head
s0 defiantly, and looking at him so proudly that no one,
not even her mother, dreamed of the terrible pain that
ached at her heart.
‘‘T have known of this deception from the first,” he said.
“Ever since the evening I called upon your sister, before
you went to Europe. You personated Lora very cleverly.
will give you that much credit; but you did not deceive
me five minutes. I saw through the mask directly, and
understood the daring game you were playing in further-
ance of your revenge against me. Your clever acting did
not blind me. Ihad loved you once, remember, and the
eyes of love are very keen.” . .
_ Alternately flushing and paling, Xenie stared at him, still
clasping the little child to her wildly beating heart.
‘‘Bah!” she cried out, contemptuously, as he paused;
‘*who would believe this wild tale that you are telling? If
you suspected me, why did you not speak out?”
‘‘ Thad a fancy to see the farce played out,” he answered,
coldly. ‘‘I-was curious to know how far you would will-
fully wander in the path of sin to gratify your thirst for
revenge. I followed you to Europe, although you did not
dream of such a thing until that wild andrainy dawn when
you met me on the shore near your cottage.”
A groanforced itself though h
that dreadful day.
‘*But, Xenie,” he continued, slowly, ‘‘I never meant to
let matters go as far as they have gone. It amused me for
a little while to watch your desperate game, but I always
intended to check you before you consummated your clever
plan. But that strange power that some call fate, and
er pallid lips as she recalled