ed
a bit of chicken with appetite: she drank a little negus, which he made
for her: indeed it did seem to be better than the kind doctor's best
medicine, which hitherto, God wot, had been of little benefit. Mamma was
gracious and happy. Hetty was radiant and rident. It was quite like an
evening at home at Oakhurst. Never for months past, never since that
fatal, cruel day, that no one spoke of, had they spent an evening so
delightful.

But, if the other women chose to coax and cajole the good, simple
father, Theo herself was too honest to continue for long even that sweet
and fond delusion. When, for the third or fourth time, he comes back to
the delightful theme of his daughter's improved health, and asks, "What
has done it? Is it the country air? is it the Jesuit's bark? is it the
new medicine?"

"Can't you think, dear, what it is?" she says, laying a hand upon her
father's, with a tremor in her voice, perhaps, but eyes that are quite
open and bright.

"And what is it, my child?" asks the General.

"It is because I have seen him again, papa!" she says.

The other two women turned pale, and Theo's heart too begins to
palpitate, and her cheek to whiten, as she continues to look in her
father's scared face.

"It was not wrong to see him," she continues, more quickly; "it would
have been wrong not to tell you."

"Great God!" groans the father, drawing his hand back, and with such
a dreadful grief in his countenance, that Hetty runs to her almost
swooning sister, clasps her to her heart, and cries out, rapidly, "Theo
knew nothing of it, sir! It was my doing--it was all my doing!"

Theo lies on her sister's neck, and kisses it twenty, fifty times.

"Women, women! are you playing with my honour?" cries the father,
bursting out with a fierce exclamation.

Aunt Lambert sobs, wildly, "Martin! Martin! Don't say a word to her!"
again calls out Hetty, and falls back herself staggering towards the
wall, for Theo has fainted on her shoulder.

I was taking my breakfast next morning, with what appetite I might, when
my door opens, and my faithful black announces, "General Lambert." At
once I saw, by the General's face, that the yesterday's transaction was
known to him. "Your accomplices did not confess," the General said,
as soon as my servant had left us, "but sided with you against their
father--a proof how desirable clandestine meetings are. It was from Theo
herself I heard that she had seen you."

"Accomplices, sir!