'Oh, no,' said she. 'There is no relationship. He was only an old
friend of hers. Why did you suppose such a thing?'

He did not explain, and the next morning started to resume his duties at
Ivell.

Cope was an honest young fellow, and shrewd withal. At home in his quiet
rooms in St. Peter's Street, Ivell, he pondered long and unpleasantly on
the revelations of the cruise. The tale it told was distinct enough, and
for the first time his position was an uncomfortable one. He had met the
Franklands at Exonbury as parishioners, had been attracted by Frances,
and had floated thus far into an engagement which was indefinite only
because of his inability to marry just yet. The Franklands' past had
apparently contained mysteries, and it did not coincide with his judgment
to marry into a family whose mystery was of the sort suggested. So he
sat and sighed, between his reluctance to lose Frances and his natural
dislike of forming a connection with people whose antecedents would not
bear the strictest investigation.

A passionate lover of the old-fashioned sort might possibly never have
halted to weigh these doubts; but though he was in the church Cope's
affections were fastidious--distinctly tempered with the alloys of the
century's decadence. He delayed writing to Frances for some while,
simply because he could not tune himself up to enthusiasm when worried by
suspicions of such a kind.

Meanwhile the Millbornes had returned to London, and Frances was growing
anxious. In talking to her mother of Cope she had innocently alluded to
his curious inquiry if her mother and her step-father were connected by
any tie of cousinship. Mrs. Millborne made her repeat the words. Frances
did so, and watched with inquisitive eyes their effect upon her elder.

'What is there so startling in his inquiry then?' she asked. 'Can it
have anything to do with his not writing to me?'

Her mother flinched, but did not inform her, and Frances also was now
drawn within the atmosphere of suspicion. That night when standing by
chance outside the chamber of her parents she heard for the first time
their voices engaged in a sharp altercation.

The apple of discord had, indeed, been dropped into the house of the
Millbornes. The scene within the chamber-door was Mrs. Millborne
standing before her dressing-table, looking across to her husband in the
dressing-room adjoining, where he was sitting down, his eyes fixed on the
floor.

'Why