Robert glanced at Granville. He was afraid of being rude towards
this possible lover, but the young man was quick to perceive the
situation.

"I guess I must be going," he said to Ellen.

"Must you hurry?" she returned, in the common, polite rejoinder of
her class in Rowe.

"Yes, I guess I must," said Granville. He held out his hand towards
Ellen, then drew it away, but she extended hers resolutely, and so
forced his back again. "Good-night," she said, kindly, almost
tenderly, and again Robert thought with that sinking at his heart
that here was quite possibly the girl's lover, and all his dreams
were thrown away.

As for Granville, he glowed with a sudden triumph over the other.
Again he became almost sure that Ellen loved him after all, that it
was only her maiden shyness which had led her to refuse him. He
pressed her hand hard, and held it as long as he dared; then he
turned to Robert. "I'll bid you good-evening, sir," he said, with
awkward dignity, and was gone.

"I will go in and see your aunt," Ellen said to Robert, regarding
him as she spoke with a startled expression. It had flashed through
her mind that Miss Lennox had possibly come to confess the secret of
so many years ago, and she shrank with terror as before the lowering
of some storm of spirit. She knew how little was required to lash
her mother's violent nature into fury. "She was not--?" she began to
say to Robert, then she stopped; but he understood. "Don't be
afraid, Miss Brewster," he said, kindly. "It is not a matter of
by-gones, but the future. My aunt has a plan for you which I think
you will like."

Ellen looked at him wonderingly, but she went with him across the
moonlit yard into the house.

She found Miss Cynthia Lennox, fair and elegant in a filmy black
gown, and a broad black hat draped with lace and violets shading her
delicate, clear-cut face, and her father and mother. Fanny's eyes
were red. She looked as if she had been running--in fact, one could
easily hear her breathe across the room. "Ellen, here is Miss
Lennox," she said. Ellen approached the lady, who rose, and the two
shook hands. "Good-evening, Miss Brewster," said Cynthia, in the
same tone which she might have used towards a society acquaintance.
Ellen would never have known that she had heard the voice before. As
she remembered it, it was full of intensest vibrations of maternal
love and tenderness and protection beyond anything which she had
ever heard in her ow