an his wife; and now you have led me into a confession that I told you
I'd not enter upon. Say another word about it and I'll go and ask Loyd
to come up here and listen to the discussion, for I detest secrets and
secrecy, and I'll have nothing to say to either."

"You'd not do anything so rash and inconsiderate?"

"Don't provoke me, that's all. You are always telling me you know the
Calverts, their hot-headedness, their passionate warmth, and so on. I
leave it to yourself, is it wise to push me further?"

"May I show you a letter I received yesterday morning, in reply to one
of mine?"

"Not if it refers to Loyd."

"It does refer to him."

"Then I'll not read it. I tell you for the last time, I'll not be
cheated into this discussion. I don't desire to have it said of me some
fine morning, You talked of the man that you lived with on terms of
intimacy. You chummed with him, and yet you told stories of him."

"If you but knew the difficulty of the position in which you have placed
me--"

"I know at least the difficulty in which you have placed _me_, and I am
resolved not to incur it. Have I given to you Sophy's letter to read?"
said he with a changed voice. "I must fetch it out to you and let you
see all that she says of her future happiness." And thus, by a sudden
turn, he artfully engaged her in recollections of Rocksley, and all the
persons and incidents of a remote long ago!

When Loyd returned with the girls to the house, Calvert soon saw that
he had not spoken to them on the altercation of the morning--a reserve
which he ungenerously attributed to the part Loyd himself filled in the
controversy. The two met with a certain reserve; but which, however felt
and understood by each, was not easily marked by a spectator. Florence,
however, saw it, with the traditional clearness of an invalid. She
read what healthier eyes never detect She saw that the men had either
quarrelled, or were on the brink of a quarrel, and she watched them
closely and narrowly. This was the easier for her, as at meal times she
never came to table, but lay on a sofa, and joined in the conversation
at intervals.

Oppressed by the consciousness of what had occurred in the morning, and
far less able to conceal his emotions or master them than his companion,
Loyd was disconcerted and ill at ease: now answering at cross-purposes,
now totally absorbed in his own reflections. As Calvert saw this, it
encouraged him to greater efforts to be agre