r day."

"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte
asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with
anxious eyes.

"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not
know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned
their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss
upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately
and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been
only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an
unconscious tool."

She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts,
rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte.

"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an
air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or
dishonourable."

"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana.

Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud passionate heart! what a
strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte;
tender compassion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and
unutterable sense of her own loss.

She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been
a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of
that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips,
only to be dashed away for ever.

"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all
the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one
that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a
lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to
drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of
earthly bliss; and she has broken it!"

It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the
bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman
can do to another. This passionate heart, which ached with such cruel
pain, was prone to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging
his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget
to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had
shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that
the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs
steal away this one heart?

"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and