the words portended.

"I can't promise that," he objected.

"But I ask you; it is my wish," she returned with a touch of command.

"For my sake, or yours?" he rejoined.

"For both. Give me your promise. You must if we are to remain friends."

Her look and the fascination in her voice seemed to pull the very heart
out of him.

"You are asking a cruelly hard thing of me," he replied, with a tremor in
his voice. "I don't understand--"

"No, you don't understand," she interrupted quickly. "It is enough to
know that you have taken a girl's foolish commission too seriously, so
seriously as to run the risk of making things even worse than they
threatened to be. Now I ask you to leave well alone."

"If it is well," he said doubtfully.

"Of course. Why should it not be?" she rejoined, in a not very convincing
tone. "Now I shall rely on you--and I am sure it will not be in vain--to
respect my wishes. Things seem to be in a horrible muddle," she added
with a rather dreary laugh, "but let's hope they will right themselves
before long."

She rose, compelling him to rise too. Something in the tone and manner of
her last speech made him quite unwilling to end their conference, and
desperately anxious to speak out everything that was in his mind and try
to bring matters to a crisis.

"Don't go for a moment," he said as she began to move away towards the
house. "I have something to say to you."

She turned quickly and faced him with a suggestion of displeasure in her
eyes. "What is it?" she said with a touch of impatience.

"Only this," he answered quietly. "Have you lost a brooch, Miss
Morriston?"

At the question the blood left her cheeks as it had done a little while
before; then surged back till her face was suffused.

"A brooch? Yes; I have missed one. Have you found it?" The words were
spoken with a calmness which failed to hide the eagerness behind them.

"I think so," he answered, taking out his letter-case. "A pearl, set in
diamonds mounted on a safety-pin?"

He opened the case and showed it pinned into the soft lining.

"Yes; that is mine," she said; and for a moment or two by a strange
attraction each looked into the other's eyes.

Gifford bent his head over the case as he unfastened the brooch and
took it out.

"Where--where did you find it?" Something in the girl's voice made him
glad that he was not looking at her.

"In the garden," he said.

"In the garden?" she repeated. He was looking up now