the
late Lady Tristram of Blent, and the birth of her son Mr Henry
Austen Fitzhubert Tristram. I am to add that your communication
will be considered confidential.--I am, Madame, Yours faithfully,

BROADSTAIRS.

"MADAME ZABRISKA."

"Cecily, Cecily, Cecily!" Mina darted back and thrust this wonderful
document into Cecily's hands. "He does mean something, you see, he will
do something!" she cried. "Oh, who's Broadstairs, I wonder."

Cecily took the letter and read. The Imp reappeared with a red volume in
her hand.

"Viscount Broadstairs--eldest son of the Earl of Ramsgate!" she read
with wide-open eyes. "And he says he's directed to write, doesn't he?
Well, you are funny in England! But I don't wonder I was afraid of Mr
Disney."

"Oh, Mr Disney's secretary, I suppose. But, Mina----" Cecily was alive
again now, but her awakening did not seem to be a pleasant one. She
turned suddenly from her friend and, walking as far off as the little
room would let her, flung herself into a chair.

"What's the matter?" asked Mina, checked in her excited gayety.

"What will Harry care about anything they can give him without Blent?"

Mina flushed. The conspiracy was put before her--not by one of the
conspirators but by her who was the object of it. She remembered Lady
Evenswood's question and Southend's. She had answered that it might not
much matter whether Harry liked his cousin or not. He had not loved
Janie Iver. Where was the difference?

"He won't want anything if he can't have Blent. Mina, did they say
anything about me to Mr Disney?"

"No," cried Mina eagerly.

"But they will, they mean to?" Cecily was leaning forward eagerly now.

Mina had no denial ready. She seemed rather to hang on Cecily's words
than to feel any need of speaking herself. She was trying to follow
Cecily's thoughts and to trace the cause of the apprehension, the terror
almost, that had come on the girl's face.

"He'll see it--just as I see it!" Cecily went on. "And, Mina----"

She paused again. Still Mina had no words, and no comfort for her. This
sight of the other side of the question was too sudden. It was Harry
then, and Harry only, who had really been in her thoughts; and Cecily,
her friend, was to be used as a tool. There might be little ground for
blaming Southend who had never seen her, or Lady Evenswood who had been
brought in purely in Harry's interest. But how