uld other governesses have taken a liberty with their master? A
fit of hysterical sobbing burst its way through her last reserves of
self-control; she started to her feet, and ran out of the summer-house.

Alarmed and distressed, he followed her instantly.

She was leaning against the pedestal of a statue in the garden, panting,
shuddering, a sight to touch the heart of a far less sensitive man than
the man who now approached her. "Sydney!" he said. "Dear little Sydney!"
She tried to speak to him in return. Breath and strength failed her
together; she lifted her hand, vainly grasping at the broad pedestal
behind her; she would have fallen if he had not caught her in his arms.
Her head sank faintly backward on his breast. He looked at the poor
little tortured face, turned up toward him in the lovely moonlight.
Again and again he had honorably restrained himself--he was human; he
was a man--in one mad moment it was done, hotly, passionately done--he
kissed her.

For the first time in her maiden's life, a man's lips touched her lips.
All that had been perplexing and strange, all that had been innocently
wonderful to herself in the feeling that bound Sydney to her first
friend, was a mystery no more. Love lifted its veil, Nature revealed
its secrets, in the one supreme moment of that kiss. She threw her arms
around his neck with a low cry of delight--and returned his kiss.

"Sydney," he whispered, "I love you."

She heard him in rapturous silence. Her kiss had answered for her.

At that crisis in their lives, they were saved by an accident; a
poor little common accident that happens every day. The spring in the
bracelet that Sydney wore gave way as she held him to her; the bright
trinket fell on the grass at her feet. The man never noticed it. The
woman saw her pretty ornament as it dropped from her arm--saw, and
remembered Mrs. Linley's gift.

Cold and pale--with horror of herself confessed in the action, simple as
it was--she drew back from him in dead silence.

He was astounded. In tones that trembled with agitation, he said to her:
"Are you ill?"

"Shameless and wicked," she answered. "Not ill." She pointed to the
bracelet on the grass. "Take it up; I am not fit to touch it. Look on
the inner side."

He remembered the inscription: "To Sydney Westerfield, with Catherine
Linley's love." His head sank on his breast; he understood her at last.
"You despise me," he said, "and I deserve it."

"No; I despise mysel