gotten it, but now, a fear possessing her lest Florence
should show it to any one, she runs upstairs and knocks at Miss
Delmaine's door.

"Come in," calls Florence slowly.

It is three hours since she went for her unhappy walk to the lime-grove,
and now she is composed again, and is waiting for the gong to sound
before descending to the drawing-room, where she almost dreads the
thought that she will be face to face with Sir Adrian. She is dressed
for dinner, has indeed taken most particular pains with her toilet, if
only to hide the ravages that these past three hours of bitter weeping
have traced upon her beautiful face. She looks sad still, but calm and
dignified.

Dora is dressed too, but is looking flurried and flushed.

"I beg your pardon," she says; "but my letter--the letter I showed you
to-day--have you it?"

"No," replies Florence simply; "I thought I gave it back to you; but,
if not, it must be here on this table"--lifting a book or two from the
small gypsy-table near which she had been sitting when Dora came to her
room early in the day.

Dora looks for it everywhere, in a somewhat nervous, frightened manner,
Florence helping her the while; but nothing comes of their search, and
they are fain to go down-stairs without it, as the gong sounding loudly
tells them they are already late.

"Never mind," says Dora, afraid of having betrayed too much concern.
"It is really of no consequence. I only wanted it, because--well,
because"--with the simper that drives Florence nearly mad--"he wrote it."

"I shall tell my maid to look for it, and, if she finds it, you shall
have it this evening," responds Florence, with a slight contraction of
her brows that passes unnoticed.

To Florence's mortification, Arthur Dynecourt takes her in to dinner. On
their way across the hall from the drawing-room to the dining-room, he
presses the hand that rests so reluctantly upon his arm, and says, with
an affectation of the sincerest concern--

"You are not well; you are looking pale and troubled, and--pardon me if
I am wrong, but I think you have been crying."

"I must beg, sir," she retorts, with excessive _hauteur_, removing her
hand from his arm, as though his pressure had burned her--"I must beg,
you will not trouble yourself to study my countenance. Your doing so is
most offensive to me."

"To see you in trouble, and not long to help or comfort you is
impossible to me," goes on Dynecourt, unmoved by her scorn. "Are yo