human
Uncle Ben, I am speaking of that woman who so unworthily took my dead mother's place! she exclaimed.
gpt
Yes, she is a fiend! _She_ to pretend that she loved the memory of the woman she goaded to madness--perhaps murdered; for no one saw my poor young mother drive the fatal steel into her heart. Oh, God! what deceit--what treachery!
human
Hush! You must not dare accuse _her_ so! You drive me mad! Oh, it can not be!
gpt
You take that false woman's part, then, Uncle Ben, against me and my poor young mother? Listen, then; let me tell you all I know--a secret I kept from my dead father, because I believed in him, trusted him, in spite of the servants' gossip that accused him of complicity in his young wife's death.
human
They dared, the hounds! accuse m-my brother thus?
gpt
Yes, they accused him, answered the girl.
human
Do not take it so hard, Uncle Ben. He was innocent, I know; but that fiendish woman played her part to perfection. She made my mother believe that Vincent Carew wished her out of the way, so that he might wed _her_, the traitress! She made the servants believe the same. She even plotted---- But suddenly the girl paused with clasped hands.
gpt
Oh! uncle, dear, it will wound you if I mention this; it will blacken my father's memory in your eyes--and I always loved him--I love him still, in spite of what he has done to me, and I ought to spare him.
human
Go on, Kathleen. I command you to tell me everything. I have a sacred right to know,
gpt
Listen, then, dear uncle: Just a few months before my father went away on that foreign tour, from which he never returned alive, I received a message from an old woman calling me to her death-bed in the suburbs of the city. I went, taking my maid with me. In a secret interview that followed the dying woman told me she had been housekeeper at the Carew mansion in my mother's time. She could not die easy without revealing to me a secret she had carried untold for sixteen years.
human
That secret?
gpt
Was this, replied the girl, solemnly:
human
On the day of the tragedy, Mrs. Belmont sought the housekeeper, pretending to be overcome with grief, surprise, and indignation. She confided to the woman that Vincent Carew had been making secret love to her ever since she first entered the house, and that day had openly declared his passion, begging her to fly with him to Europe, saying that his ignorant child-wife would then secure a divorce, and he could then marry his heart's best love. With tears and shame, Mrs. Belmont owned that she could not help loving her handsome employer, but that she had repulsed him with scorn, and resigned her situation to take leave immediately. Mrs. Belmont was too much overcome to explain to her pupil, and wished the housekeeper to tell Mrs. Carew the whole cause of her leaving.
gpt
My God!
human
The housekeeper, after the fashion of most servants, was too ready to believe a tale of scandal, and to excite a sensation. She did not think of doubting Mrs. Belmont then, although grave doubts assailed her after the tragedy. Well, with her heart on fire with sympathy for her wronged mistress, she did not think for a moment of sparing her the whole cruel truth. She blurted it all out in burning words, and advised the outraged wife to forsake her monster of a husband and return to her own relatives. Within the hour mamma was found dead.