d themselves and grew soft. Next
instant she put her hand to her heart, tottered on her feet, and had he
not caught her would perhaps have fallen.

"I do not think I need trouble you to answer my question, which, indeed,
now that I think of it, was one I had no right to put," he said as she
recovered herself.

"Oh, my God!" moaned Stella, wringing her hands; "I never knew it till
this moment. You have brought it home to me; you, yes, you!" and she
burst out weeping.

"Here are the hysterics," thought the Colonel, "and I am afraid that the
headache will be bad to-morrow morning."

To her, however, he said very tenderly, "My dear girl, my dear girl,
pray do not distress yourself. These little accidents will happen in the
best regulated hearts, and believe me, you will get over it in a month
or two."

"Accident!" she said. "It is no accident; it is Fate!--I see it all
now--and I shall never get over it. However, that is my own affair, and
I have no right to trouble you with my misfortunes."

"Oh! but you will indeed, and though you may think the advice hard, I
will tell you the best way."

She looked up in inquiry.

"Change your mind and marry Stephen Layard. He is not at all a bad
fellow, and--there are obvious advantages."

This was the Colonel's first really false move, as he himself felt
before the last word had left his lips.

"Colonel Monk," she said, "because I am unfortunate is it any reason
that you should insult me?"

"Miss Fregelius, to my knowledge I have never insulted any woman; and
certainly I should not wish to begin with one who has just honoured me
with her confidence."

"Is it not an insult," she answered with a sort of sob, "when a woman
to her shame and sorrow has confessed--what I have--to bid her console
herself by marriage with another man?"

"Now that you put it thus, I confess that perhaps some minds might so
interpret an intention which did not exist. It seemed to me that, after
a while, in marriage you would most easily forget a trouble which my son
so unworthily has brought on you."

"Don't blame him for he does not deserve it. If anybody is to blame it
is I; but in truth all those stories are false; we have neither of us
done anything."

"Do not press the point, Miss Fregelius; I believe you."

"We have neither of us done anything," she repeated; "and, what is more,
if you had not interfered, I do not think that I should have found out
the truth; or, at least, not yet--ti