y dear, how can I help it?" said Sybil. "I never close my eyes
until past one o'clock, and when I wake it is impossible to get to
sleep again."

"Well, you may rest in peace for the future," answered Carrissima,
throwing out her arms excitedly. "Sybil, we have both been making the
most dreadful idiots of ourselves!"

"You forget," suggested Sybil, with a perplexed expression, "that Jimmy
has actually told me he means to marry the woman!"

"It takes two to make a marriage," said Carrissima.

"You can't seriously imagine that Miss Rosser would refuse him!" cried
Sybil.

"It isn't a question of imagination," retorted Carrissima, walking
restlessly about the room. "There are the stubborn facts. I have just
come from Golfney Place!"

"Surely she didn't tell you----"

"There was no need for words," said Carrissima. "I can't disbelieve
the evidence of my own eyes, however incredible it may appear."

"Carrissima!" exclaimed Sybil, "you are making me so painfully curious.
Do, please, tell me what you saw."

"I saw Mark holding Bridget in his arms!"

"My dear Carrissima!"

"I saw him kissing her--oh, how disgusting it is!" said Carrissima,
with a shudder.

"How shockingly embarrassed you must all have felt," suggested Sybil.

"Oh dear, no," was the answer. "Neither of them had the slightest idea
they were seen. We all behaved beautifully--beautifully."

"Well, I must say this is the best news I have heard for a long time,"
said Sybil, looking wonderfully relieved.

"The--the best news!" returned Carrissima, pressing her hands to her
bosom.

"Of course, if she is going to marry Mark----"

"I don't believe she is!" said Carrissima.

"But, my dear, if you actually saw them!"

"I don't believe it," was the answer. "If he means to marry her what
is the object of all this secrecy? Mark told me only yesterday that he
had not seen her for weeks. I shall never know whom to believe again
as long as I live. While he pretended Bridget was nothing to him,
this--this hateful business has been going on in the background. I
have been afraid she would marry my father; you have dreaded that she
would marry Jimmy, and yet this afternoon I actually saw--oh, it is
abominable. There is only one explanation. There must have been
some--some understanding between them from the first."

"I always told Jimmy she might not be respectable," said Sybil.

Hearing that on another's lips, the slightest suggestion of which