and Lillian slowly drifted into the fairyland of hope,
Lord Airlie wrote every day. No one dreamed of the dark secret that
hung over Earlescourt.

Every morning Beatrice, with the sanguine hopefulness of youth, said to
herself, "Something will happen today;" every night she thought,
"Something must happen tomorrow;" but days and nights went on calmly,
unbroken by any event or incident such as she wished.

The time of reprieve was rapidly passing. What should she do if, at
the end of three weeks, Lord Airlie returned and Hugh Fernely came back
to Earlescourt? Through the long sunny hours that question tortured
her--the suspense made her sick at heart. There were times when she
thought it better to die at once than pass through this lingering agony
of fear.

But she was young, and youth is ever sanguine; she was brave, and the
brave rarely despair. She did not realize the difficulties of her
position, and she did not think it possible that anything could happen
to take her from Hubert Airlie.

Only one person noted the change in Beatrice, and that was her sister,
Lillian Earle. Lillian missed the high spirits, the brilliant
repartee, the gay words that had made home so bright; over and over
again she said to herself all was not well with her sister.

Lillian had her own secret--one she had as yet hardly whispered to
herself. From her earliest childhood she had been accustomed to give
way to Beatrice. Not that there was any partiality displayed, but the
willful young beauty generally contrived to have her own way. By her
engaging manners and high spirits she secured every one's attention;
and thus Lillian was in part overlooked.

She was very fair and gentle, this golden-haired daughter of Ronald
Earle. Her face was so pure and spirituelle that one might have
sketched it for the face of a seraph; the tender violet eyes were full
of eloquence, the white brow full of thought. Her beauty never
dazzled, never took any one by storm; it won by slow degrees a place in
one's heart.

She was of a thoughtful, unobtrusive nature; nothing could have made
her worldly, nothing could have made her proud.

Sweet, calm, serene, ignorant alike of all the height of happiness and
the depths of despair--gifted, too with a singularly patient
disposition and amiable temper, no one had ever seen Lillian Earle
angry or hasty; her very presence seemed full of rest and peace.

Nature had richly endowed her. She had a quick, viv