, darling; perhaps I can help you."

"I promised to be his wife, Lily," continued Beatrice. "I am sure I
did not mean it. I was but a child. I did not realize all that the
words meant. He kissed my face, and said he should come to claim me.
Believe me, Lily, I never thought of marriage. Brilliant pictures of
foreign lands filled my mind; I looked upon Hugh Fernely only as a
means of escape from a life I detested. He promised to take me to
places the names of which filled me with wonder. I never thought of
leaving you or mamma--I never thought of the man himself as of a lover."

"You did not care for him, then, as you do for Lord Airlie?" interposed
Lillian.

"Do not pain me!" begged Beatrice. "I love Hubert with the love that
comes but once in life; that man was nothing to me except that his
flattery, and the excitement of contriving to meet him, made my life
more endurable. He gave me a ring, and said in two years' time he
should return to claim me. He was going on a long voyage. Lily, I
felt relieved when he was gone--the novelty was over--I had grown
tired. Besides, when the glamour fell from my eyes, I was ashamed of
what I had done. I tried to forget all about him; every time the
remembrance of him came to my mind I drove it from me. I did not think
it possible he would ever return. It was but a summer's pastime. That
summer has darkened my life. Looking back, I own I did very wrong.
There is great blame attaching to me, but surely they who shut me out
from the living world were blameworthy also.

"Remember all through my story, darling, that I am not so good, not so
patient and gentle as you. I was restless at the Elms, like a bird in a
cage; you were content. I was vain, foolish, and willful; but, looking
back at the impetuous, imperious child, full of romance, untrained,
longing for the strife of life, longing for change, for excitement, for
gayety, chafing under restraint, I think there was some little excuse
for me. There was no excuse for what followed. When papa spoke to
us--you remember it, Lily--and asked so gently if we had either of us a
secret in our lives--when he promised to pardon anything, provided we
kept nothing from him--I ought to have told him then. There is no
excuse for that error. I was ashamed. Looking round upon the noble
faces hanging on the wall, looking at him, so proud, so dignified, I
could not tell him what his child had done. Oh, Lily, if I had told
him, I s