ave I avoided being alone with you?" Rose had turned to
the chimney-piece.

Edmund Grosse sank into a low chair, crossed his legs, and looked up at
her defiantly, but with keen observation.

"It has been too absurd," he said, "you have hardly spoken to me, and
you know, of course, that I came here to see you. I meant to go to the
Riviera until I heard that you were coming here."

"But you have been quite happy, quite amused. There seemed no reason why
I should interrupt. And you know, Edmund, they said that you came here
every year."

"Well, I didn't come only to see you," he said, "as you like it better
that way. And now, it is about Miss Molly Dexter I want to speak to
you."

This time Rose gave a little ghost of a sigh, and looked at him with
unutterable kindness. She was feeling that, after all, she had come
second in his consciousness--after Miss Dexter, whom she could not
like, but who had sat up all night with the kitchenmaid.

"Why about Miss Dexter? what can I have to do with her?" The tone was
almost contemptuous--not quite, Rose was too kind.

"Do you remember that I went to Florence?"

"Yes; I did not want you to go." There was at once a distinct note of
distress in her voice. It was horribly painful to her to have to think
of the things she tried so hard to bury away.

"No, but I went," he said very gently; "and it was useless, as I knew it
would be. But I want to tell you one thing which I have learnt, and
which I think you ought to know, as it may be inconvenient if you do
not. It is that Miss Dexter----" Rose interrupted him quickly.

"Is the daughter of the lady in Florence?" She gave a little hysterical
laugh. He looked at her in astonishment.

"And that is why she dislikes me so much. Do you know, Edmund, I had a
feeling from the moment I first saw her that there was something wrong
between us. It gave me a horrible feeling, and then I asked Mary
Groombridge about her, and she told me the poor girl's story; only she
said the mother lived in Paris. Of course Mary does not know, or she
would never have asked us here together. But that is how I knew what you
were going to say; and yet I had no notion of it till a moment ago, when
it came to me in a flash. Only I wish I had known sooner!"

It was not common with Rose to say so much at a time, and there had been
slight breaks and gaps in her voice, pathetic sounds to the listener.
She seemed a little--just a little--out of breath with past so