ly sought Earlscourt, who was talking to Lady Mechlin.

"Well? Not quite, now! But, by the way, why should people charge
self-reliance on to one as something reprehensible and undesirable? A
proper self-reliance is an indispensable ground-work to any success. If
you cannot rely upon yourself, upon your power to judge and to act, you
must rely upon some other person, possibly upon many people, and you
become, perforce, vacillating and unstable.

'To thine own self be true,
And it shall follow, as the day the night,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.'"

As she spoke a servant brought a note to her, and I noticed her cheeks
grow pale as she saw the handwriting upon it. She broke it open, and
read it hastily, an oddly troubled, worried look coming over her face, a
look that Earlscourt could not help but notice as he stood beside her.

"Is there anything in that letter to annoy you, Beatrice?" he asked,
very naturally.

She started--rather guiltily, I thought--and crushed the note in her
hand.

"Whom is it from? It troubles you, I think. Tell me, my darling, is it
anything that vexes or offends you?" he whispered, bending down to her.

She laughed, a little nervously for her, and tore the note into tiny
pieces.

"Why do you not tell me, Beatrice?" he said again, with a shade of
annoyance on his face.

"Because I would rather not," she said, frankly enough, letting the
pieces float out of the window into the street below. The shadow grew
darker in his face; he bent his head in acquiescence, and said no more,
but I don't think he forgot either the note or her destroyal of it.

"I thought there was implicit confidence _before_ marriage whatever
there is after," sneered his sister, as she passed him. He answered her
calmly:--

"I should say, Helena, that neither before nor after marriage would any
man who respected his wife suffer curiosity or suspicion to enter into
him. If he do, he has no right to expect happiness, and he will
certainly not go the way to get it."

That was the only reply he gave Lady Clive, but her thorn No. 2 festered
in him, and when he bade Beatrice good night, standing alone with her in
the little drawing room, he took both her hands in his, and looked
straight into her eyes.

"Beatrice, why would you not let me see that note this evening?"

She looked up at him as fearlessly and clearly.

"If I tell you why, I must tell you whom the note was from, and what it