u remember
what you then told me?"

She flushed slightly at the recollection. "I--I ought not to have said
that," she exclaimed hurriedly. "I was only a girl then, and I--well, I
didn't know."

"What you said has never passed my lips, dearest. Only, I ask you again
to-day to tell me honestly and frankly whether your opinion of him has
in any way changed. I mean whether you still believe what you then
said."

She was silent for a few moments. Her lips twitched nervously, and her
eyes stared blankly out of the window. "No, I repeat what--I--said
--then," she answered in a strange hoarse voice.

"And only you yourself suspect the truth?"

"You are the only person to whom I have mentioned it, and I have been
filled with regret ever since. I had no right to make the allegation,
Walter. I should have kept my secret to myself."

"There was surely no harm in telling me, dearest," he exclaimed, still
holding her hand, and looking fixedly into those clear-blue, fathomless
eyes so very dear to him. "You know too well that I would never betray
you."

"But if he knew--if that man ever knew," she cried, "he would avenge
himself upon me! I know he would."

"But what have you to fear, little one?" he asked, surprised at the
sudden change in her.

"You know how my mother hates me, how they all detest me--all except
dear old dad, who is so terribly helpless, misled, defrauded, and
tricked--as he daily is--by those about him."

"I know, darling," said the young man. "I know it all only too well.
Trust in me;" and, bending, he kissed her softly upon the lips.

What was the real, the actual truth, he wondered. Was she still his, as
she had ever been, or was she playing him false?

Little did the girl dream of the extent of her lover's knowledge of
certain facts which she was hiding from the world, vainly believing them
to be her own secret. Little did she dream how very near she was to
disaster.

Walter Murie had, after a frivolous youth, developed at the age of
six-and-twenty into as sound, honest, and upright a young man as could
be found beyond the Border. As full of high spirits as of high
principles, he was in every way worthy the name of the gallant family
whose name he bore, a Murie of Connachan, both for physical strength and
scrupulous honesty; while his affection for Gabrielle Heyburn was that
deep, all-absorbing devotion which makes men sacrifice themselves for
the women they love. He was not very demonstrative.