a girl's sorrow! The sorrow of an
uncomprehending child? Speak."

"I have found out," said Beatrice, in a slow voice, "just through an
accident, although I believe God was at the bottom of it, something
which has saved me from committing a great wrong, which has saved your
son from becoming an absolute scoundrel, which has saved us both from a
life of misery."

"What have you found out, Beatrice?"

Mrs. Bertram's face was perfectly white; her words came out in a low
whisper.

"Beatrice, what have you discovered?"

"That Captain Bertram loves another, that another girl loves him, has
almost been brought to death's door because she loves him so well."

"Pooh, child, is that all? How you frightened me."

"Why do you speak in that contemptuous tone. The 'all' means a great
deal to Captain Bertram, and to me, and to the other girl."

"Beatrice, you are a baby. What young man of my son's age has not had
his likings, his flirtations, his heart affairs? If that is all--"

"It is all, it is enough. Your son has not got over his heart affair."

"Has he not? I'll speak to him. I'll soon settle that"

"Nor have I got over it."

"Beatrice, my dear girl, you really are something of a little goose.
Jealous, are you? Beatrice, you ask an impossibility when you expect a
young man never to have looked with eyes of affection on any one but
yourself."

"I will not marry the man who looks with eyes of affection at another."

"How you bewilder me, and yet, how childish you are. Must I argue this
question with you? Must I show you from my own larger experience how
attached Loftus is to you? Dear fellow, his very face shows it."

"I don't want you to teach me anything from your experience, Mrs.
Bertram. Captain Bertram does not love me. I do not love him; he loves
another. She has given him all her heart, all that she can give. He
shall marry her;--he shall marry her to-morrow."

Mrs. Bertram rose very slowly.

"Beatrice," she said. "Your meaning is at last plain to me. _Noblesse
oblige_. Ah, yes, that old saying comes true all the world over. You
have not the advantage of good birth. I thought--for a long time I
thought that you were the exception that proved the rule. You were the
lady made by nature's own hand. Your father could be a tradesman--a
_draper_--and yet have a lady for his daughter. I thought this,
Beatrice; I was deceived. There are no exceptions to that nobility which
only birth can bestow. You belong to t