it,' he said.

'And don't believe it?'

'Not unless there was some other evidence to support the view.'

She paused a minute and then began hesitatingly--

'My intention was--what I did not dream of owning to you--my intention
was to try to induce you to fulfil your promise to Miss Hinton not
solely on her account and yours (though partly). I love Cytherea Graye
with all my soul, and I want to see her happy even more than I do you. I
did not mean to drag her name into the affair at all, but I am driven
to say that she wrote that letter of dismissal to you--for it was a
most pronounced dismissal--not on account of your engagement. She is old
enough to know that engagements can be broken as easily as they can be
made. She wrote it because she loved another man; very suddenly, and not
with any idea or hope of marrying him, but none the less deeply.'

'Who?'

'Mr. Manston.'

'Good--! I can't listen to you for an instant, madam; why, she hadn't
seen him!'

'She had; he came here the day before she wrote to you; and I could
prove to you, if it were worth while, that on that day she went
voluntarily to his house, though not artfully or blamably; stayed for
two hours playing and singing; that no sooner did she leave him than she
went straight home, and wrote the letter saying she should not see you
again, entirely because she had seen him and fallen desperately in love
with him--a perfectly natural thing for a young girl to do, considering
that he's the handsomest man in the county. Why else should she not have
written to you before?'

'Because I was such a--because she did not know of the connection
between me and my cousin until then.'

'I must think she did.'

'On what ground?'

'On the strong ground of my having told her so, distinctly, the very
first day she came to live with me.'

'Well, what do you seek to impress upon me after all? This--that the
day Miss Graye wrote to me, saying it was better that we should part,
coincided with the day she had seen a certain man--'

'A remarkably handsome and talented man.'

'Yes, I admit that.'

'And that it coincided with the hour just subsequent to her seeing him.'

'Yes, just when she had seen him.'

'And been to his house alone with him.'

'It is nothing.'

'And stayed there playing and singing with him.'

'Admit that, too,' he said; 'an accident might have caused it.'

'And at the same instant that she wrote your dismissal she wrote a
letter referri