eturn for my sake--for my
sake. She leaves the pure atmosphere of that simple country home to
become the central point in a network of intrigue; and I am bound to
keep the secret so closely interwoven with her fate. I love her more
truly, more purely than I thought myself capable of loving; yet I can
only approach her as the tool of George Sheldon, a rapacious
conspirator, bent on securing the hoarded thousands of old John
Haygarth.

Of all men upon this earth I should be the last to underrate the
advantages of wealth,--I who have been reared in the gutter, which is
Poverty's cradle. Yet I would fain Charlotte's fortune had come to her
in any other fashion than as the result of my work in the character of
a salaried private inquirer.

BOOK THE SEVENTH.

CHARLOTTE'S ENGAGEMENT.

CHAPTER I.

"IN YOUR PATIENCE YE ARE STRONG."

Miss Halliday returned to the gothic villa at Bayswater with a bloom on
her cheeks, and a brightness in her eyes, which surpassed her wonted
bloom and brightness, fair and bright as her beauty had been from the
hour in which she was created to charm mankind. She had been a creature
to adore even in the first dawn of infancy, and in her christening-hood
and toga of white satin had been a being to dream of. But now she
seemed invested all at once with a new loveliness--more spiritual, more
pensive, than the old.

Might not Valentine have cried, with the rapturous pride of a lover:
"Look at the woman here with the new soul!" and anon: "This new soul is
mine!"

It was love that had imparted a new charm to Miss Halliday's beauty.
Diana wondered at the subtle change as her friend sat in her favourite
window on the morning after her return, looking dreamily out into the
blossomless garden, where evergreens of the darkest and spikiest
character stood up stern and straight against the cold gray sky. Diana
had welcomed her friend in her usual reserved manner, much to
Charlotte's discomfiture. The girl so yearned for a confidante. She had
no idea of hiding her happiness from this chosen friend, and waited
eagerly for the moment in which she could put her arms round Diana's
neck and tell her what it was that had made Newhall so sweet to her
during this particular visit.

She sat in the window this morning thinking of Valentine, and
languishing to speak of him, but at a loss how to begin. There are some
people about whose necks the arms of affection can scarce entwine
themselves. D